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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE 



Comedy of English Protestantism: 

IN^ THREE ACTa 

Scene: Exeter Hall, London. 

Time: The Summer of 1893. 



>jr- / EDITED BY 

A^F. MARSHALL, B. A. Oxon. 



" For how can she constrain them to obey, 
, Who has herself cast off the lawful sway ?" 

— Dryden's " The Hind and the Panther,''^ 



New York, Cincinnati, Chicago 
BENZIGER BROTHERS. 

1894. 




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Ths Ijbrart 
op congrb98 



WASHUIGTON 



Copyright, 1893, by Benzigkr Brothers. 



It was the brilliant suggestion of a well- 
known Broad Churchman: ''Let us assemble a 
Grand Council in Exeter Hall, London, with 
a view to restoring all the sects in Great Brit- 
ain to the embrace of their mother, the Church 
of England." The first idea was that each of 
the sects should send its delegate, and that 
each delegate should take for his watchword, 
''Reunion." Yet there was one grave incon- 
venience in the way of such a council — that 
there were more than two hundred sects in 
Great Britain ; and it was felt that if two hun- 
dred delegates were to be all talking together 
in Exeter Hall, each one expatiating on his 
own theology, there would need to be a com- 
manding personage in the chief chair of the 
assembly, to preserve the harmony and the 
amenity of disputation. This difficulty was, 
however, astutely got over by limiting the 
number of delegates to seven ; these seven to 



4 The Comedy of English Protestantism, 

act as delegates for the entire kingdom — their 
representative vakie to be as follows : 

1. The Rev. Sebastian Stole was chosen dele- 

gate for the Ritualists. 

2. To Canon Courtly were confided the inter- 

ests of the Low Church party. 

3. Dr. Wylde was the approved counsel for the 

Latitudinarians, better known perhaps in 
these days as Broad Churchmen. 

4. The Wesleyans selected the Rev. Walter 

Sterling as the representative of the vari- 
ous Methodist communities. 

5. Captain Banner was the appointed orator 

for the Salvation Army. 

6. The Home-Made Sects had an eloquent 

advocate in Mr. Moore^ the well-known 
author of '^Variety in Doctrine, the Surest 
Evidence of Eeal Unity in Belief." 
1. The Imported Sects secured the champion- 
ship of Pastor Dort, the efficient minister 
of the Arminian Chapel, Land's End. 



On the morning of one of the most beautiful 
days in May all these delegates were on the 
platform of Exeter Hall ; and it is needless to 
record — all England must have heard of it — 
that the hall was densely crowded in every 
part; many clergymen being unable to find 
chairs, and one venerable archdeacon being 
seen to contend with a Salvationist as to the 
prior claim to a front seat in the gallery. 
Within a very few minutes, however, it be- 
came obvious that the vast concourse was not 
composed of grave, deliberative theologians ; a 
large number of persons having made their 
way into the hall who were not particularly 
attached to any religion, and who would be 
not unlikely to disturb the harmony of the 
Council by observations which would be more 
spontaneous than reverent. Yet this admix- 
ture was a natural accident of a great 
meeting. 



6 The Comedy of 

As the clock struck ten, the President, 
Professor Chaos, moved slowly and with 
dignity into an arm-chair which was placed 
just in front of the organ; and, silence 
being commanded, the huge audience calmed 
down, with mingled cheerfulness, apprehen- 
sion, and even awe. 



The President (addressing the audience 
with much solemnity). You will agree with 
me that it is a sublime object for which we are 
met here to-day. Unhappily divided as we are 
in this country, by reason of the glorious free- 
dom of the Protestant faith — through the very 
Scripturalness, I may say, of that liberty of 
private judgment which was won for us by 
the Reformers in the sixteenth century — we 
are, nevertheless, all one in our belief in Christ, 
and in our belief 

(A voice from the gallery: '^That every 
one, except yourself, is wrong.") 

The President, I must really beg that there 
may be no unseemly interruptions. Legiti- 
mate comment is one thing, but mere frivolity 



English Pr^otestantism, 7 

is out of place on this grave occasion. {" Hear, 
hear," from a few of the audience.) I was 
saying, when I was interrupted, that we are 
all united in our belief in Christ; and I was 
about to add that our differences are in the 
main unimportant ; or, if important, they are 
only rendered so by the perfectly natural 
tenacitj^ with which each person clings to his 
own opinions. 

This question of the important and the un- 
important is, I am aware, beset with some 
difficulty. It is objected : How can we know 
what is important or unimportant, when we 
have only our own private opinion to guide 
us — our own interpretation of the Scriptures 
to enlighten us? I consider this objection to be 
specious. There is but one sovereignly impor- 
tant article of the Christian faith, and that is 
Eedemption through Christ; while, in regard 
to the nature of the Sacraments, of Church 
Authority, of the Christian Priesthood, or in- 
deed of any of the so-called dogmas of the 
Catholic Creeds, there must be the widest pos- 
sible margin for personal proclivity, for private 
disposition or aspiration. Our differences, I 



8 The Comedy of 

am persuaded, are on the surface ; our agree- 
ment is deep down in the wells of truth. I see 
around me representatives of two hundred 
sects ; and I cannot doubt that if they would 
all throw their opinions together, and melt 
them down in a common crucible in this his- 
toric hall, they would find the result to be a 
very substantial credo^ with only a limited 
amount of nego^ or perhaps cogito f (Shouts 
of ^'No, no.") Well, it maybe I am giving 
credit for too much magnanimity (A voice: 
''You mean, too little conscience") to many 
respected adherents to their own opinions; 
what I meant to say was that many people 
think they are devoted to Divine truth, where- 
as they are really only devoted to their own 
prejudice. (Cries of ''Oh, oh.") 

Now why are there more than two hundred 
sects? Can it be supposed that there are 
more than two hundred Gods? (Loud laugh- 
ter.) Or can it be supposed that one God 
can approve of two hundred divisions in 
that family which was created by the one 
Christ? We all know that schism is wrong; 
we are all agreed that we ought to be 



English Protestantism. 9 

united in one body; we are all aware that, 
even in the big Church of England — where 
there is more schism, more division, more 
sectarianism, than in all the sects outside it 
put together — there is a constant lamen- 
tation over doctrinal discord, with the con- 
stant prayer that the ceaseless strife may be 
put an end to; yet, though we know these 
things., here we are in the year 1893, many 
centuries after the time of the Reformation (A 
voice: ^'The sole cause of it all"), without the 
smallest ray of hope that our schisms will be 
ended, and that Christian unity will be once 
more restored to us. 

My friends, we are here to-day to find a so- 
lution. Seven delegates, representing more 
than two hundred sects, will address you upon 
the grave duty of Christian unity. (Suppressed 
laughter.) I will call first upon the Eev. 
Canon Courtly, to speak for the painfully di- 
vided Church of England ; or rather for that 
section of it which is known as the Low Church 
party, in contrast with the Broad Church party, 
and the Ritualistic. 

The Low Church Delegate, I feel the grav- 



10 The Comedy of 

ity of the responsibility you have laid upon me. 
I recognize that the chief cause of Dissent in 
this country has been the shortcomings of our 
national Established Church. {'' Hear, hear. ") 
I speak with diffidence, yet I cannot divest 
myself of the conviction that the Church of 
England has been the mother of all the sects. 
Perhaps she could not avoid this sad maternity. 
When the Church of England broke with the 
Catholic Church — (The Eitualist Delegate: 
'' Pardon me, sir, with the Eoman Church, not 
with the Catholic Church ") — When the Church 
of England broke with the Catholic Roman 
Church, she broke with the whole principle of 
Church Authority. The consequence was that 
every man became a Church unto himself. 
And though, for my part, I am an ardent ad- 
vocate of private judgment, I do not confuse 
two principles which are as opposite as the 
poles, the obeying another's authority, and 
the obeying my own. Now it is obvious that 
the Church of England, having repudiated 
Church Authority, and having set up in its 
stead the individual interpretation of every text 
of both the Testaments, New and Old, cannot 



English Protestantism. 11 

consistently blame Dissenters for carrying on- 
ward to their logical ultimate the primary 
principles of Henry VIII. and Queen Elizabeth. 
It seems to me to have been simply absurd for 
Protestant churchmen in the Tudor times to 
say — as they quickly began to say — to all Dis- 
senters : We will separate just so far as we like 
from Eome, but we will not allow you to sepa- 
rate one inch from ourselves. We will ap- 
prove the doctrine that the licentious King, 
Henry VIII. , could create himself sole pontiff 
of the Church in England; but we will not 
allow you to transfer your spiritual homage to 
teachers who are at least as spiritual as was 
this monster — to men who have not butchered 
nor turned adrift numerous wives, nor be- 
headed their trusty and true friends. TFe will 
allow Queen Elizabeth to create for herself 
and for us a perfectly brand-new ecclesiastical 
jurisdiction — (The Eitualist Delegate: ''No, 
no, the ancient jurisdiction of this realm.") 
Pardon me, sir, the jurisdiction of a Prime 
Minister — of Lord Palmerston, Mr. Disraeli, 
Mr. Gladstone — was 7iot the ancient, ecclesias- 
tical jurisdiction of this realm. I was say- 



12 The Comedy of 

ing — but I do not blame the Eitualist Dele- 
gate for the interruption, though it slightly 
mars the harmony of my illustration — Queen 
Elizabeth was not consistent in declaring to 
Non-Conformists, '' I will appropriate to myself 
the exclusive, pontifical rights of all ortho- 
doxy; and by the most awful infliction of penal 
laws, through forty years, I will compel my 
subjects to adopt my religion, or to be fined, 
sent to prison, and finally hanged ; but I will 
not allow you to think for one moment for 
yourselves, or to be disobedient to Queen, Par- 
liament, or jailers." Now I, for my part, am 
attached to the Church of England. (Much 
laughter.) I do not say to the origin of the 
Church of England, but to the existing insti- 
tution, as we enjoy it. I regard that Church 
as a reasonable compromise between the aus- 
tere rule of Eome and the ecclesiastical anarchy 
of sectarianism. The origin of the Church of 
England may have been detestable, but its 
present development is an all-wide catholicity, 
admirably adapted to the independent charac- 
ter of Englishmen, and so elastic as to admit 
of the widest possible divergence between 



English Protestantism, 13 

bishops, priests, deacons, and the whole of the 
laity. This is what I think a church ought to 
be. I have nothing to do now — such things 
happened three centuries ago — with the secu- 
lar causes which parented the Eef ormation ; 
with the divorce of Henry VIII. from Cather- 
ine of Arragon — which was the sole reason 
why the king broke with the Church of Rome ; 
nor with the illegitimacy of Henry's daughter, 
the Princess Elizabeth — which illegitimacy was 
the sole reason of her Protestantism. As to 
the Whys and Hows of the Reformation, I 
have no need to trouble myself; they only con- 
cerned the originators, and may be. forgotten. 
What I have to do with is the present charac- 
ter of the Church of England ; and I say that 
I approve that character, because it makes 
everything a matter of private opinion ; and I 
am the inflexible advocate of private opinion. I 
want to insist upon this point before I urge on 
you, my dissenting brethren, the extreme fa- 
cility, if not the duty, of becoming Anglicans. 
If I were asked to describe Anglican theology, 
as to its spirit, its intention, its embrace, I 
should say: It is " the ecclesiastical consecra- 



14 The Comedy of 

tion of private judgment." (Laughter, and 
cries of ''No, no," and tokens of strong dis- 
sent from the Rituahst Delegate.) Well, my 
friends, what is not a matter of opinion? If 
you will answer me that question I will give 
in to you. The Thirty-nine Articles are only 
matters of opinion; especially those articles 
which assert that the ''Church /^af/z. authority" 
yet that anybody may teach the Church what 
it ought to teach. Everything in the Church 
of England is a matter of opinion; the very 
Bible itself being the Uninterpreted Law, of 
which every man is to be himself the sole in- 
terpreter.^ But why insist upon what every- 
body knows? Take the last three big move- 
ments of the three big parties in the Church, 
and tell me if I am not justified in my asser- 
tion. The Ritualists have recently started a 
perfectly new Anglican Church, which is sup- 
posed to teach the exact opposite, in doctrine, 
ritual, and devotion, of what all good Protes- 
tants have believed to be "Anglican" for three 
centuries. The Broad Church party have re- 
cently taken within their embrace both scien- 
tific scepticism and agnosticism. The Low 



English Pr^otestantism, 1.5 

Church party — with which I myself am most 
in sympathy — have gone out toward Dissent 
with a friendly warmth, and have proposed 
the interchange of pulpits with Non-Conform- 
ists. Thus all parties are united in that one 
conspicuously Anglican dogma, that every 
man may believe what he likes, and yet remain 
a faithful member of the Church of England. 
Eitualism, and the most comprehensive Broad 
Churchism ; transcendental Protestant Popery, 
and the most abj^smal Puritanism^ all, all 
are included in the same communion, all, all 
are simply matters of opinion. And lest any 
of you should call me to account — and I see 
that my esteemed friend, the Eitualist Dele- 
gate, is preparing whips and scorpions for my 
back — I will take shelter under the wing of the 
highest authority in the Church of England — 
no less a personage than Archbishop Benson. 
I am sure that if I can convince you that the 
archbishop and myself take exactly the same 
view as to private judgment ; that, if anything, 
his Grace is even more elastic than I am — ^a 
warmer champion for the rights of liberty of 
conscience — I shall have persuaded you that 



16 * The Comedy of 

you may, every one of you, come inside the 
Establishment, and yet continue to hold fast to 
your present opinions. 

(Marks of interest and attention among the 
audience, and of evident anxiety on the part 
of the President and of the Eitualist Delegate.) 

Now I say that I may take the Archbishop 
of Canterbury for my authority that the Church 
of England teaches nothing, denies nothing^ 
save what every one believes, no one denies. 
Who that read his Grace's Pastoral to the An- 
glican clergy, on the subject of Variety in 
Christian Worship, could fail to be edified by 
his sublimely charitable counsel as to the duty 
of the Anglican clergy toward the laity? I 
own that when I read that Pastoral I was at 
once struck by its comprehensiveness — I was 
going to say by its equatorial girth — and set 
wondering — though not for the first time in 
my experience — why there should need to be 
an Archbishop of Canterbury. You all re- 
member that the Bishop of Lincoln's ultra -Eit- 
ualism was the occasion of this archiepiscopal 
pronouncement ; and you may also remember 
the generous terms of the supreme ruling, in 



English Protestantism. 17 

which the Archbishop couched his command, 
"Pray, please everybody." I must quote to 
you a few words from the Pastoral, so as to 
demonstrate its perfect Christian politeness, or 
what I may call its spiritual good breeding. 
After reminding the clergy that "there was no 
church in the world in which parish priests or 
ministers had anything like the same independ- 
ence, in or out of Church, as the parochial 
clergy had " — an independence of which I am 
sure we must all gratefully acknowledge that 
the clergy have most liberally availed them- 
selves — his Grace of Canterbury told his clergy 
"not to make any changes in their conduct of 
Divine service, unless they were first assured 
of the unanimity of their people in desiring 
such change;" that even if they had, ordinar- 
ily, such Eitualistic services as implied a belief 
in the Catholic doctrine of Holy Mass, stilly 
they must sometimes, "especially on the first 
Sunday of the month," have a Low Church 
form of service, " which should meet in all ways 
the desire of their parishioners" who happened 
to look on Holy Mass as an abomination ; and 
that "the true pastor would delight to be one 



18 The Comedy of 

with his people," in adopting such a character 
of public worship as should reflect their imme- 
diate views on Christian doctrine. Thus Real 
Presence and No Presence, Priesthood and No 
Priesthood, Divine Faith and purely natural 
opinionism ought to be held to be of equal 
value, equal truth; so that on no account 
should the ''true pastor" presume to teach any- 
body anything; Ms duty being to be taught 
authoritatively by his congregation. (Cries of 
"Question," and merriment.) 

Now as I was pondering what would be the 
effect of this Pastoral on the Ritualists, I re- 
ceived a letter from a valued friend who is a 
Ritualist — a Ritualist of a very advanced type 
— and who holds a cure in one of the South 
London parishes. If you will permit me I will 
read to you that letter ; for, though it conveys 
in sarcastic language a Ritualist's contempt 
for the supreme authority, it happily proves 
that Dr. Anybody, or Dr. Everybody, might 
claim a warm doctrinal sympathy from our 
good archbishop. (Cries of "Oh, oh," and 
"Shame.") Our object hereto-day being to 
remove all disabilities which mar the harmony 



English Protestantism, 19 

of all sects with the Church of England, every- 
thing which goes to prove that there is no real 
difference between any of us must clear the 
way to a happy mutual understanding. Let 
it be shown then that the Archbishop of Can- 
terbury approves all the varieties of religious 
doctrine within that Church over which he 
worthily presides, and we shall have removed 
the principal hindrance to our combination — a 
combination of happy indifference to details. 

My Ritualist friend's letter — written the very 
day after the publication of the Pastoral to 
which I am calling your attention — (and here 
Canon Courtly drew the letter from his pocket) 
was couched in the following playful vein: 
My Dear Canon: 

I wondered, after reading the Archbishop's 
Pastoral, what you, as a good Protestant, 
would think of it. I have a mind to throw the 
Pastoral into popular form, and publish it for 
the moderate price of one penny, so that all 
England may apprehend its graceful clemency. 

The Pastoral, without unfairness or exag- 
geration, might be rendered in such language 
as the following : 



20 The Comedy of 

"You are aware, my reverend brethren, 
that I am set over you by Her Majesty — from 
whom alone I receive authority and jurisdic- 
tion — expressly to conform my teaching to your 
wishes, and to make things as comfortable as 
I can. The Church of England is an institu- 
tion which was designed by Queen Elizabeth 
for the happy combination of all opposites — for 
the generous comprehension of all heresies — 
and it is my proud lot to encourage you in 
expanding aJatitudinarianism which shall ex- 
clude no one who is called Christian from your 
communion. Therefore, let those who believe 
in the adorable sacrifice of the Mass, and those 
who call that belief gross idolatry, be equally 
dear to you, equally treasured as true believers. 
At the same time, do not mix your different 
creeds. Keep them distinct for the sake of 
appearances and of peace. If the majority of 
your parishioners are Ritualists, say Mass for 
them three Sundays out of four; and on the 
fourth Sunday teach them that Mass is a su- 
perstition, so as to quiet the sensitive conscience 
of Low Church people. On the other hand, if 
the majority of your congregation are Low 



English Protestantism. 21 

Church people, have a Low Church service 
three Sundays out of four; and on the fourth 
Sunday Hght your candles on the altar, wave 
your incense, bend your knee, 'mix the chal- 
ice, ' so as to imply that on that Sunday you 
are a Roman Catholic. You will find this an 
agreeable change and recreation. You will be 
relieved from, a dull sameness or uniformity. 
Happy are the people, blessed are the congre- 
gation, who have a pastor so wise and so large- 
hearted, that he can change his belief quite as 
frequently as his white cravat, and can per- 
form feats in spiritual acrobatism which, com- 
pared with the circus-memories of our child- 
hood, suggest an agility and a mobility which 
are preternatural." 

(Some expressions of amusement, mixed with 
groans of deprecation.) 

Now this letter, though sarcastic, at least 
justifies my view that the Archbishop of Can- 
terbury, the highest authority for all Angli- 
cans, does not recognize any difficulty in the 
way of Eeunion. His Grace is above all things 
a gentleman; and a gentleman is one who 
considers other people's feelings, and is ready 



22 The Comedy of 

to sacrifice his own views to kindly amenity. 
If, then, the archbishop sees no difference be- 
tween doctrines — and we all know that ritual 
is the honest expression of doctrine, and that 
the two cannot by possibility be divorced — it 
follows that the Church of England sees no 
difference between doctrines, though, for ap- 
pearance' sake, she seeks to forrnulate certain 
opinions. Why, then, should we be any longer 
disunited? Can we not agree to assimilate 
each other's doctrines? Can we not — to carry 
out the views of the Archbishop — exchange 
convictions, exchange services, exchange rit- 
ual, exchange doctrines, exchange everything 
for which we have a personal predilection, and 
so exhibit to the world the sublime spectacle 
of sectarian harmony, based on the extremest 
limits of Christian charity, and graced by the 
highest breeding of good manners? For nay 
part, my pulpit is open to every one who can 
turn sinners from an evil life to repentance, 
and who cares more for brotherly love than for 
dogma or church services, for candles, colored 
stoles, or genuflexions. 

(The canon resumed his seat amid plaudits 



English Protestantism, 23 

and hisses; the major part of the audience ap- 
pearing to be not quite convinced that he had 
found the '^solution" which Professor Chaos 
had hoped for. The delegate for the Broad 
Church party was just rising to respond, when 
the President, interrupting, said :) 

Tlie President (addressing the Low Church 
Delegate). I think, sir, you have been unjust 
in your satire in regard to the doctrinal width 
of the Archbishop. In the recent judgment, 
in the case of the Bishop of Lincoln, the Arch- 
bishop most emphatically laid it down that 
there were certain things which a bishop must 
not do. I presume you had forgotten that 
fact? 

The Lotv Church Delegate. No, sir, I had 
not forgotten it ; but I was unwilling to allude 
to so delicate a subject as the impeachment of 
a living Anglican bishop. I will, however, as 
you wish it, add a word. 

The sum of the Archbishop's judgment 
amounted to this: You, my Lord Bishop of 
Lincoln, have done some shocking things when 
ministering at the Holy Table. You have lit 
candles, and that too in broad daylight. You 



24 The Comedy of 

have mixed water with wine for Holy Com- 
munion. You have made use of an ablution, 
like a Catholic priest. You have stood with 
your back to the people, at the time when you 
were supposed to be consecrating. You have 
caused the ''Agnus Dei" to be sung, in imita- 
tion of the singing of it in Catholic churches. 
And, finally — which is the most painful offence 
of all — you have actually made the sign of the 
cross when giving absolution and benediction. 
Now, I do not wish, my Lord Bishop, to be 
too severe upon your novelties, or to curb your 
natural taste for Protestant Popery. I want 
to find excuses for you, if it be possible. I 
therefore say to you : There was nothing posi- 
tively criminal in lighting candles — provided 
they were not lit ''ceremoniously." Water 
might be mixed with the sacramental wine — 
provided no one saw you commit the offence. 
And ablution might be legitimately used — on 
the same condition of privacy and unobserved- 
ness. The "Agnus Dei" might be harmlessly 
sung — for the simple reason that it is not ru- 
brically forbidden. But there are two offences 
which must not on any account be repeated. 



English Protestantism, 25 

You must not make the sign of the cross ; and 
you must not turn your back on the people. 

Now the President has observed to me that 
these two important reservations proved that 
the Primate '^drew the line" at downright 
Popery. I agree with him. The Primate says : 
''You must not make the sign of the cross, be- 
cause that would mean that you were a real 
Catholic bishop ; and you must not turn your 
back on the people, because that would mean 
that you were saying the Catholic Mass ; and 
the Church of England only permits Popery in 
theory^ she does not sanction it in practice, in 
affirmation." Now I think that 

(At this point, however, the Eitualist Dele- 
gate, the Eev. Sebastian Stole, rose in an 
excited way from his chair, and ejaculated 
the startling observation, ''There can be no 
question that the Archbishop of Canterbury 
ought to resign." So soon as the disturbance 
which followed this outburst had become 
sufficiently calmed or exhausted, the Low 
Church Delegate inquired of Mr. Stole, 
" How would you justify that unique admo- 
nition?") 



26 The Comedy of 

The Ritualist Delegate. Nothing could be 
more easy. Let me take only the ruling as to 
not making the sign of the cross; and I say 
that on this ruling alone the Archbishop is 
bound to resign. I will prove it in this way. 
Every Ritualist is aware that it was the custom 
of the early Christians to make the sign of the 
cross on all occasions ; not only when perform- 
ing priestly acts, but when engaging in the 
simplest duties of domestic life. Tertullian, 
who wrote in the second century, recorded this 
historic fact in the following words: ''The 
early Christians, in all their travels and move- 
ments, in all their comings-in and goings-out, 
in putting on their shoes, in the bath, at the 
table, in lighting their candles, in lying down, 
in sitting down, whatever occupation engaged 
them, were wont to mark their foreheads with 
the sign of the cross." Now since the Arch- 
bishop has laid it down, '' You must not make 
the sign of the cross," while it is absolutely 
certain that the primitive Christians always 
did so, it follows that the Archbishop is not a 
primitive Christian, and is not therefore a true 
Anglo-Catholic. 



English Protestantism. 27 

The Low Church Delegate But on the same 
principle ought not the Bishop of Lincoln to 
resign ? If the Archbishop of Canterbur}^ ought 
to resign because he is not a primitive Chris- 
tian, ought not the Bishop of Lincoln to resign 
because he is not allowed to be primitive? To 
be a primitive Christian in a Church which is 
not primitive is certainly as unreasonable as to 
affirm of the same Church that it is both primi- 
tive and condemns primitive practices. 

The President. As to the duty of resigning, 
I really think, if you will excuse me, that you 
are pushing consistency too far. The Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Lincoln 
probably both think that it would be as rea- 
sonable to ask the Privy Council to resign, or 
indeed to ask the whole Church of England to 
set a noble example of resignation. If every 
one were to resign in the Anglican Establish- 
ment, on the ground that he had a theology of 
his own, that institution would not have a sin- 
gle member left. I remember, forty years 
ago, when the Privy Council delivered judg- 
ment on the question of Baptismal Regenera- 
tion, deciding that an Anglican might believe 



28 The Comedy of 

it or might deny it according to his individual 
proclivity, it was expected that there would be 
a vast resignation of curacies, rectories, vicar- 
ages, archdeacons, deaneries, and even bish- 
oprics. A few clergymen became Catholics, 
and were much abused for it. But the rest sud- 
denly discovered that the Privy Council had no 
authority, any more than had the Archbishop 
of Canterbury, or even the two houses of Convo- 
cation, or even — if it might be said with due 
reverence — Queen Victoria. A threat to re- 
sign a cure of souls, in Anglican sense, means 
only, ''You deserve that I should resign; but 
if I were to withdraw my personal orthodoxy 
from your Communion, where would you be 
without me, miserable heretics?" (Great laugh- 
ter.) 

(The Low Church Delegate having once 
more sat down, and the subject of ''resigna- 
tion" being closed, the Broad Church Delegate 
quickly rose. The audience were evidently a 
little anxious about his "views," after the ex- 
tremely lax theology of Canon Courtly.) 

The Broad Church Delegate. I had listened 
with deep interest to the Low Church Delegate ; 



English Protestantism, 29 

and, in the main, I was disposed to agree with 
him. There was only one point on which I 
utterly differed from him, though this point 
was rather practical than doctrinal. He ear- 
nestly invited you to come inside the Church 
of England. I as earnestly invite you to stay 
outside — if indeed there be an inside or an out- 
side to the Church of England. (Some dis- 
turbance; many persons shouting, ''Do you 
call this Eeunion?" or ''What are you there 
for? this is trifling." The tumult having sub- 
sided, the Broad Church Delegate proceeded :) 
I have no doubt that in the course of a few 
minutes I shall have succeeded in making you 
perfectly understand how I reconcile these sen- 
timents with Eeunion. Bear with me till I 
have completed my argument. 

Now I am supposed to represent only the 
Broad Church party ; yet I maintain that most 
of the clergy of the Establishment — every one 
of the Ritualists included — are quite as broad 
in their sympathies as I am myself. If they 
are not, how can they remain in communion 
with crowds of clergy who differ from them 
upon many points of doctrine ; differ as widely 



30 The Comedy of 

as does affirmation from repudiation, as the 
most conscientious insistence from mocking 
scorn? The Low Church Delegate has just 
proved to you that the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury sits loosely to any dogmatic belief what- 
ever ; only drawing the line where too positive 
an affirmation might offend the susceptibilities 
of good Protestants. And now I shall make 
it my business to show to you that many An- 
glican bishops, deans, dignitaries are equally 
comprehensive in their theologies. You re- 
member that at a recent Church Congress, 
which was held in the course of last summer at 
Grindelwald, there was one day's discussion 
which was presided over by an Anglican prel- 
ate. Dr. Perowne, the esteemed Bishop of 
Worcester. Now I must mention that at this 
Congress were present clergymen of every 
school: High, Dry, Anglican, and Eitualistic, 
besides Low, Slow, Evangelical, and Associa- 
tionist — eight divisions which are classified by 
a Quarterly Eeviewer; and therefore it was 
just the assembly to do justice to my conten- 
tion, that there is no inside and no outside to 
the Church of England. When I say to you 



English Protestantism, 31 

that I warmly urge on you the counsel to "stay 
outside the absolutely boundless Church of 
England," I know that you will reply to me: 
" You love a paradox ; for that which is bound- 
less can have no outside." But then the par- 
adox is the very gist of the truism. Wherever 
you are, my dissenting brethren, you cannot 
be, doctrinally, outside the Church of England ; 
and consequently, not being outside, how can 
you come in? 

Now, first, take the words of the President 
of the Church Congress — Dr. Perowne, the 
Bishop of Worcester — in regard to Episcopacy, 
or rather on the Apostolical Succession. He 
says that, as to the contention that a '^ min- 
istry, to be valid, must be able to trace its de- 
scent from the Apostles," it is "a monstrous 
doctrine," . . . " something too fearful to con- 
template." Well, I perfectly agree with him, 
but that is not the point to be considered. 
The Bishop argues that ''the Apostolical Suc- 
cession is one thing, but that an historic epis- 
copate is another thing ;" which our Eitualist 
friends will saj^ is like arguing that ''an un- 
broken chain is one thing, but a chain with 



32 The Comedy of 

its links broken is another thing." The Bish- 
op, however, insists that the Church of Eng- 
land ''nowhere in her articles or her Formu- 
laries asserts that episcopacy is necessary to the 
existence of a Church or to the validity of her 
sacraments. . . . The Church of England pre- 
fers episcopacy, but she does not condemn 
Presbyterianism. . . . Non- Conformist minis- 
ters may be accepted as properly ordained. . . . 
It is however hopeless" — and here follows a re- 
mark which may perhaps puzzle the ordinary 
stickler for consistency — "to look for Reunion 
of the Church of England with the Non-Con- 
formist Churches except on the condition that 
their ministers shall submit to ordination by 
a Church » of England bishop. And this, I 
fear, makes all hope of Eeunion for the present 
impossible." 

To show, however, how thoroughly the Bish- 
op of Worcester and myself are in accord as 
to there being no outside and no inside to the 
national Church, I will add that his Lordship 
administered Holy Communion to Non-Con- 
formists according to the ritual of his own 
Church. "Never shall I forget," wrote the 



English Protestantism. 33 

Bishop of Worcester to the Times^ ''the sol- 
emn communion of last Sunday, when, in the 
Zwinglian church of Grindelwald, I, assisted 
by three clergymen of the English and Irish 
Churches, administered the sacrament of the 
Lord's Supper, according to the form prescribed 
in the Prayer-Book, to leading ministers and 
other representatives of the Scotch Presbyte- 
rian and English Non-Conformist Churches." 
(Here the Ritualist Delegate audibly whis- 
pered, ''Disgraceful!") 

Thus far, then, as to Dissent versus Episco- 
pacy. And now a word as to the doctrine of 
Baptism. I think that the Episcopal teaching 
on this subject was very luminous. Certain 
Baptists had affirmed — so said the Bishop — 
that they "would consent to no Reunion which 
should express connivance with the soul- 
destroying error on the subject of Baptism;" 
and this, at first sound, was rather alarming. 
The Bishop, however, quickly assured the Bap- 
tists that there was really no reason to be un- 
easy, since "what was called the soul-destroy- 
ing error was repudiated by probably half of 
the members of the Church of England itself." 



34 The Comedy of 

Half of the members ! So that here we have 
the entire EstabHshment spHt up into two 
warring camps on the primary doctrine of 
Baptismal Kegeneration. But now I want 
you to scan critically the Bishop's pleading. 
''Are Non-Conformists justified," asked his 
Lordship, "in putting only that interpreta- 
tion upon the Formularies and Articles of the 
Church of England which is put upon them by 
the extreme High Church party? Will it not 
be quite possible for them to unite with the 
Church of England, and yet to maintain all 
those views on sacramental grace which they 
now maintain, and which are held or main- 
tained by a large section of English church- 
men?" Well, really I think you will agree 
with me : if so-called Anglicans may put vari- 
ous interpretations on the same formularies of 
the same Church in the same country, it would 
be very hard upon Non-Conformists if they 
might not put their own interpretations upon 
formularies which can have no significance 
whatever. ("Hear, hear," from the Dissent- 
ing party.) 

In short, the Bishop of Worcester evidently 



English Protestantism, 35 

agreed with Mr. E. F. Horton, M.A., who 
said, at the same Congress, that he did '^not 
wish any section of the Christian Church abol- 
ished, because there was just as much necessity 
for each of them as for the Church of Eng- 
land itself." He would agree also with the 
Eev. J. H. Battersby, who said that '^Congre- 
gationalists, Presbyterians, Methodists, and 
Baptists should combine with Episcopalians in 
conserving all that was best in each." So too 
probably he would agree with the Eev. Hugh 
Price Hughes that, as "Anglicans number 
only twenty millions, and Non-Conformists 
number sixty millions" — of course he was 
speaking of the entire world — "conversion to 
any one Church in particular might be regarded 
as mathematically impossible." And, finally, 
he would agree with the statement of Pere 
Hyacinthe, the well-known New Protestant or 
Old Catholic, "Za reforme die 16^ siecle a 
sauve VEgliseenladivisant;'''' though whether 
he would agree with him in the prophecy, "la 
reforme du ^0^ la sauvera en Punisant,^^ must 
be left to the individual speculation. 

But I have wearied you with this Church 



36 The Comedy of 

Congress chatter. I only wanted to justify 
my counsel, ^'Stay outside the immeasurable 
Church of England." Why, even Archdeacon 
Farrar would, I am sure, agree with me. He 
said in a speech at a meeting of the National 
Protestant Church Union, in this very month 
of May, that ''seven thousand of the Anglican 
clergy were avowed supporters of the Eome- 
ward movement;" while at the same meeting 
the Dean of Norwich expressed a hope that 
the Evangelical party should so live and act 
that ''the onlooker, comparing the Evangeli- 
cals with the Ritualists, would be compelled to 
say that the Evangelicals had out-preached 
them, out-prayed them, out-worked them, out- 
lived them," and this too in the same Church 
of England ! 

Now just see what it all means. Arch- 
deacon Farrar said that there were in the 
Church of England 5043 Ritualist chiirches. 
In these churches "sacerdotalism" is trium- 
phant. And "sacerdotalism" means a priest- 
hood divinely appointed to offer sacrifice, and 
divinely appointed to absolve from sin in the 
Sacrament of Penance. One-third, therefore, of 



English Protestantism, 37 

all the clergy are committed to " sacerdotalism ;" 
while two-thirds are committed to the sound old 
Protestant tradition, that sacerdotalism is idol- 
atrous and superstitious. When Macaulay 
described the Church of England as ^' a hun- 
dred sects battling within one Church," he 
never conceived of this ultimate development 
of two extremes. Had he done so we can 
imagine the scathing irony with which he 
would have made some such remark as, "In 
one and the same Church all the principles of- 
Roman Catholicism, with the exception only 
of the principle of obedience, are blended with 
the principles of rabid Protestantism, and with 
the religious fanaticism of the conventicle 
or the Salvation Army." Macaulay had only 
known of old-fashioned High Churchmen — 
such men as Hooker, Laud, Andrews, or Taylor, 
or, later still, Pusey or Keble, who were no 
more like the modern Ritualists than a country 
gentleman is like a Franciscan, or than '' Dearly 
beloved brethren" is like the Mass. Yet if in 
a few years such stupendous changes have 
been brought about, we may well ask, will the 
High Church party in the course of another 



38 The Comedy of 

few years make their submission corporately 
to the Roman Church? (Cries of "No, no, 
never," and "They will only make their sub- 
mission to themselves.") 

The President. Our subject being the Ee- 
union of the Churches, may I ask you, did the 
Church Congress you have referred to furnish 
valuable suggestions on this point? 

The Broad Church Delegate. Very valua- 
ble suggestions. Thus one speaker, the Rev. 
Lewis Hughes, was so superbly magnanimous 
in his theology that he asked, "Is it not pos- 
sible for Dr. Mackennal, Dr. Lunn, General 
Booth, and the Bishop of Lincoln, not only to 
shake hands, but to work together in the same 
fold under one Head?" Another speaker, a 
layman, proposed the courtly experiment of in- 
viting Dissenting Ministers into Anglican pul- 
pits ; though whether for the purpose of preach- 
ing against the Church of England was not 
stated by this too amiable Churchman. A third 
speaker, the Archbishop of York — though I am 
not quite sure that this was at the very same 
Conference — said in my hearing that he rejoiced 
that "the same Bible was accepted by all An- 



English Protestantism. 39 

glicans and by all Dissenters;" his Grace how- 
ever forgetting to mention that, while all 
Englishmen accepted the same Bible, there 
were thirty -six million Interpreters, each of 
whom created his creed for himself. A fourth 
speaker, the Bishop of Worcester, did 7iot think 
that ''all the Churches must be absorbed in the 
Church of England," and his Lordship added, 
"I fully recognize Non-Conformist bodies as 
Churches." And lastly, lest it should for a 
moment be supposed that Eeunion was at all 
likely to be proximate. Dr. Lunn was very care- 
ful to lay it down that ''the work they had 
taken in hand was not a light work ; it was a 
serious matter, and it might take many gen- 
erations to accomplish." From which it was 
evident that neither you, my Dissenting friends, 
nor I myself, are likely to derive benefit from 
a Eeunion which our great-grandchildren will 
have small hope of seeing realized, say, fifty or 
a hundred and fifty years hence. (A voice: 
"You have been three hundred years about it 
already ! Why not wait till the end of the 
world?") 

The President, Was there not a second Con- 



40 The Comedy of 

gress held at Rhyl, with the express object of 
converting Welsh Dissenters to the Church of 
England ? Surely at this second Congress there 
must have been valuable suggestions, which 
might help us in the task we have before us? 

The Broad Church Delegate. If the sugges- 
tions, sir, were not valuable, they were orig- 
inal. I remember that one of the speakers, 
Mr. Harwood, perfectly charmed me with his 
all-embracing catholicity; for he said: "I do 
not want to abolish Dissent, but to absorb it. 
I do not see why the Church should not have 
room for a still greater variety than it pos- 
sesses. We are too monotonous in character. 
We want Churchmen who are plus something 
— such as Churchmen j9/t^s Methodists. " I was 
much struck by this really genuinely new con- 
ception, and I concluded that the speaker's 
passion for variety must be insatiable, indeed 
abysmal; for ''an Anglican plus Baptist," or 
a ''Ritualist plus Quaker," implied a nobility 
of comprehensiveness I had not imagined. I 
vividly recall also two other "suggestions." 
Thus, the Principal of Cheltenham College 
argued in this way — though T cannot now 



English Protestantism. 41 

recall his exact language — that while schism 
was unquestionably very heinous, it was im- 
possible to say who was a schismatic; the Non- 
Conformists not esteeming themselves to be 
schismatics, and therefore — as it would seem — 
not being schismatics. " I was much charmed 
by this simple test of the fact of schism. It 
seemed to reduce the ''sin of schism" to pure 
fiction ; for no schismatic ever yet allowed that 
he was in schism, and therefore no schismatic 
could by possibility be a schismatic. And so 
''Eeunion" was left quite without meaning, 
since it was impossible that there should be 
Eeunion of non -schismatics. And may I just 
mention, while speaking of this Congress, how 
astonished I was when the Master of Keble 
College read a paper of which the title was " the 
duty of fasting;" for, to speak truly, I had not 
known that it was a ''duty." And it was a 
gratification to me, soon afterward, to find that 
an Anglican bishop was also as ignorant upon 
the subject as I was myself. You remember 
that when the Bishop of Ely " dispensed " his 
clergy and laity from the duty of fasting dur- 
ing Lent — on account of the prevailing influ- 



42 The Comedy of 

enza — the Bishop of Eochester was asked by his 
clergy and laity to kindly concede to them the 
same boon. He replied that he would have been 
happy to do so, but that he had never heard 
that Lent-fasting was a Church ordinance ; and 
he therefore could not see the need of a dispen- 
sation. (Much laughter.) However, we must 
excuse bishops for not being ''well up" in these 
little matters; for even Convocation has only 
quite recently debated whether it be a ''duty" 
not to go to communion after breakfast. 

And now it only remains that I ask you: 
Have I justified my counsel, " Stay outside the 
all-containing Church of England?" (Laugh- 
ter, and cries of "No, no," "Yes, yes.") You 
will tell me that I have not done anything 
toward Eeunion. But real Eeunion is con- 
fessedly impossible ; and a Eeunion that should 
be fictitious would be degrading. A Eeunion 
in the rough sense of external corporateness 
or nomenclature — and this is what I call a 
"fictitious" union — would mean that Dissent- 
ers should consent to belong to a particular 
body, on the condition that they might believe 
as they did before ; and it would mean more- 



English Protestantism, 43 

over that the body to which they should pro- 
fess an overt adherence should remam just 
precisely what it always was, '^a net to catch 
all fish except Papists." I say, then, ivhy 
should Non-Conformists submit themselves to 
the Established Church, of which the chief over- 
seers, the archbishop and bishops, proclaim 
that it includes most of the prominent Dissent- 
ing views ; includes those who believe in epis- 
copacy and those w^ho do not believe in it ; in- 
cludes the Bishop of Lincoln w^ho '^says Mass," 
and the Protestant Associations which abhor 
Mass ; includes the members of the Privy Coun- 
cil and the editors of the Eitualist newspapers; 
includes — if I may respectfully mention it — 
Her Majesty the Head of the Church, who 
frequents indifferently Presbyterian and Angli- 
can places of worship, and the extremest Eitu- 
alists who call Presbyterians heretics ; includes 
the alpha and omega of the whole range of 
religious opinion, from transcendental quasi- 
Popery to rabid Puritanism? Do you call it 
Eeunion to give the same name to scores of 
sectaries who all continue to cherish their own 
creed in their inmost heart, and not one of 



44 The Comedy of 

whom has any more respect for an Anghcan 
clergyman's theology than he has for his pri- 
vate politics or taste in hats? I do not call 
this Eeunion ; I call it the complete sacrifice of 
self-respect, with the abandonment of manly 
honor and consistency. No: I believe in Ee- 
union, but not of this kind. I believe in the 
frank admission by all Protestants that they 
trust to their own opinions and to nothing else ; 
and I maintain that if we could all of us plainly 
confess this, and leave off abusing one another 
for not agreeing with us, we might then grasp 
each other's hand in a true Reunion; a Ee- 
union of common sense and of perfect integrity ; 
a Eeunion in first principles — those of believing 
in our own judgment, and respecting the same 
belief in all our brethren. 

(Partial cheering, with several curious and 
abrupt comments, followed this plausible at- 
tempt to ''find a solution." The President, 
however, at once rose from his arm-chair ; and, 
as though he were anxious to avoid criticism 
of the last speech, said hastily: ''I will now 
ask you to listen to the Eev. Sebastian Stole, 
who is well known as the learned and profound 



English Protestantism. 45 

author of a recent work, entitled ' The Church 
of England the only Primitive Catholic 
Church.'" A sensible wave of enkindled in- 
terest immediately passed over the vast as- 
sembly ; and every one seemed to feel that the 
fresh prospect of original views might be re- 
freshing after the obvious failure of the last 
two speakers.) 

The Rev. Sebastian Stole. It has been with 
deep pain that I have listened to Canon Courtly, 
and with still deeper pain to Dr. Wylde. I 
had hoped that the revival of Catholic princi- 
ples in this country had, to a certain extent, 
elevated Anglican Protestantism, as well as 
leavened all the sects of Non-Conf ormisrn ; so 
that it would be no far reach from the rehabili- 
tation of the Church of England to the resur- 
rection of the sects to primitive truth. Suffer 
me to speak for a moment of myself. '^Eit- 
ualist" as I am called, all the world knows 
that Eitualism is only the formal presentation 
of Catholicity. I care not for signs or watch- 
words, or for the mise-en-scene of Christian 
worship, save so far as they may be didactic 
of dogmatic truths ; which need to be clothed, 



46 The Comedy of 

to be languaged, in a becoming formalism, so 
that the natural and the supernatural man 
may apprehend them. My first principles are 
unity, charity, catholicity; and though un- 
happily separate at the present time from my 
Eoman brethren, the gulf is the result of his- 
toric accidents ; it is not my fault, my offence. 
I wish to speak plainly on this subject. Dis- 
senters, I know, say to me, ''You are yourself 
a Dissenter — a Dissenter within the big sect of 
the Church of England," and they think that 
they are logical, or at least that they talk com- 
mon sense, when they ridicule me for pretend- 
ing to be a Catholic, while all the while I am 
only an imitator of Catholic forms, and a 
Protestant as regards both Popery and Low 
Churchism. Now let me ask you — and with- 
out rudeness or presumption — do you think 
that you understand my true position ? (Some 
vulgar person in the crowd: ''No, nor you 
yourself either. ") That position may be briefly 
stated as follows. In the earlier ages Chris- 
tians accepted Catholic truth as it became form- 
ulated by the authority of general councils. 
Gradually, as the centuries rolled on, there 



English Protestantism. 47 

crept into the Church many novelties, and 
among these novelties was the arrogant as- 
sumption of the Bishop of Eome to be not only 
chief pastor but despotic ruler. This assump- 
tion was resisted through the Middle Ages, was 
finally vanquished and routed in the sixteenth 
century, and is now exclusively approved by 
the Roman Church, which is seeking to make 
headway in this country. Unhappily, with the 
assumption of the supreme dictatorship, other 
errors of kindred extravagance grew apace ; so 
that the Catholic Church in the sixteenth cen- 
tury may be said to have been a living body, 
terribly sickened by natural infirmities, human 
decay. Then came the great Protestant Rev- 
olution. But the Reformers overdid their re- 
forming work. They swept away much truth 
with much error. Begotten mainly by purely 
secular motives, and conducted by purely sec- 
ular weapons, the Reformation, both under 
Henry VIII. and Queen Elizabeth, made use of 
the axe, not the pruning-knife; so that it 
lopped off healthy branches from the Catholic 
tree, though happily leaving the Catholic root 
undisturbed. Then followed three centuries of 



48 The Comedy of 

Erastianism ; three centuries of dull, arid, 
sleepy Protestantism ; until, at the time of the 
Oxford movement, the new life of Catholicity 
restored the Church of England to primitive 
truth. The Kitualists are the legitimate heirs 
of primitive truth, as they have been its ear- 
nest revivers or reintroducers. Yet we have 
still a great work to bring to perfection. A 
few more years, and the Church of England 
will be solidly Catholic; solidly primitive, 
united, and, I hope, perfect. Meanwhile, we 
must bear the brunt of persecution ; we must 
bear the travesty of the Privy Council sitting 
in judgment; we must bear the ludicrous at- 
tacks and the puerile inanities of Protestant 
alliances and associations, and the wretched 
ineptitude of both our archbishops and bishops. 
Canon Courtly and Dr. Wylde have both dwelt 
on this ineptitude ; though to them it is only a 
matter for quiet contempt, while to us it is a 
cause of sorrow and humiliation. Still, this 
ineptitude can only last a short time ; in a few 
years we shall have Catholic bishops. Catholic 
archbishops ; and we shall present to the world 
the grand spectacle of a Primitive Church, re- 



English Protestantism, 49 

born out of the ashes of corrupt Komanism, 
and out of the debris of an equally worn-out 
and effete Protestantism. 

Now it only remains that I contribute my 
counsel toward the " solution, " which our Pres- 
ident has earnestly asked us to try to find. 
Eeunion is indeed a great, a joyous word ; and 
the fact of a Catholic Eeunion would be more 
joyous still. But whereas the Low Church 
Delegate has said to you, ''Come at once into 
the comprehensive Church of England;-' and 
the Broad Church Delegate has said to you, 
"Do not come in., but strive for a better social 
modus vivendi ;^^ I say to you. Wait. Wait 
for a few years before you join us. Wait till 
we are wholly united in one body. Wait^ till 
when you come into the Church of England 
you may know for certain what it is you are 
coming into. (The vulgar person here re- 
marked, ''Wait till we have turned up our 
toes in a church-yard.") In about another 
dozen years we shall be ready for you. In the 
mean time, I beg you to study Eitualist works ; 
try to acquire some little knowledge of Catho- 
lic principles ; try to learn to believe in the Holy 



50 The Comedy of 

Mass, and in the Seven Sacraments, which are 
now — or will be shortly — Anglican verities. 
You will thus be getting ready for the great 
Reunion. And as it is reasonably certain that 
the next Archbishop of Canterbury, instead of 
being a heretic, will be a Catholic; and that 
the appointment of future bishops will be 
taken out of the hands of the Prime Minister, 
and will be lodged in those of an orthodox 
council of Eitualist clergy (the vulgar person 
again suggested: ''The Ritualist Jurisdiction 
Company, Limited") ; you will have the hap- 
piness in a few years of making your submis- 
sion to the Catholic Church ; not to a Church 
as it is at present, half primitive and half 
modern ; half devoted to Catholic doctrines and 
Catholic practices, and half distracted by the 
private caprices of wilful Protestants — but to 
the one living, primitive, perfect Church of 
England ; the sole repository of the Apostolic 
faith and doctrine — of the sentiment, love, de- 
votion of the Ancient Church. 

(For some moments the audience seemed to 
be bewildered, but they soon broke out into 
merry laughter; the ''baser sort" of the lis- 



English Protestantism. 51 

teners indulging in a class of comments which 
were natural under the provocation of such 
rhapsody, but which could hardly be discreetly 
transferred to this report. A few minutes 
passed while the President, conversing with 
the other delegates, appeared to be considering 
on whom he should next call for wise counsel. 
Then, turning to the delegate for the Wesley- 
ans, he said, with an obvious pleasure in the 
anticipation: '^May I beg you, sir, to reply to 
the Eitualist Delegate?") 

The Bev. Walter Sterling (who was a distin- 
guished and highly intelligent-looking man, 
and who seemed to have a sort of reserve 
fund of power, as though he were not dis- 
posed to be in a hurry over his purpose) looked 
straight at the Eev. Sebastian Stole and said 
to him : May I ask you, sir, ivho gave you the 
authority to restore the Church of England to 
Catholicity ; to undo all the work of the Ee- 
f ormers ; and to decide for your archbishops 
and your bishops, as well as for the population 
of this realm, what is the sole truth as to all 
doctrine and all worship, " all sentiment, love, 
devotion of the Ancient Church"? 



5^ The Comedy of 

Bev. Sebastian Stole (after a pause, which 
betrayed a surprise at such a direct appeal). / 
have no such power. It is the CathoHc au- 
thority of the Early Church which has that 
power. 

The Wesley an. Very good. And tvho, pray, 
is the representative in your Church of this 
Catholic authority of the Early Church? 

The Ritualist. At present, unhappily, there 
is no visible representative ; at least no corpor- 
ate, united representative, save only the body 
of the Catholic clergy. 

The Wesleyan. I see. And ivho appointed 
this ''body of the Catholic clergy" — by which 
you mean the Eitualist clergy in the Establish- 
ment — to be the sole, infallible judge of prim- 
itive truth? 

The Bitiialist. There is no need of any "ap- 
pointment" in the case. It rests with a Catho- 
lic clergy to teach the truth. 

The Wesleyan. With the rectors and the 
curates, or with the bishops and the arch- 
bishops? 

The Ritualist. Properly with the bishops 
and archbishops in council assembled. 



English Protestantism. 53 

The Wesley mi. A.nd have the bishops and 
the archbishops in council assembled justified 
you in all your Eitualistic teaching? 

The Ritualist. They have not done so as 
yet; but this is the unhappy result of three 
centuries of Protestantism, which have so low- 
ered the tone of Catholicity in this country 
that it is difficult to find a bishop who is not a 
heretic. 

The Wesleyan. Who says that any one of 
your bishops is a heretic? 

The Ritualist. The great majority of the 
present Anglican bishops are out of harmony 
with primitive Catholic teaching. 

The Wesleyan. Who says so? 

The Ritualist. The Primitive Church would 
say so, if it could now speak. 

The Wesleyan. But as it cannot speak, who 
is the interpreter of the Voice that cannot be 
heard? 

The Ritualist (after a pause which was al- 
most painful to the audience) . I see your drift, 
and I admit that there is no living interpreter 
who is authorized by a legitimately constituted 
authority ; yet my answer is, that though the 



54 The Comedy of 

Primitive Voice cannot be heard, the Primitive 
Writings can be read; and these writings are 
sufficiently clear as to primitive truth. 

The Wesleyan, TlHw is your interpreter of 
these writings? 

The Ritualist. The consensus of the early 
Doctors of the Church. 

The Wesleyan, Then you make the Early 
Doctors to interpret their own writings; and 
you make yourself to be the interpreter of their 
interpretation? 

The Ritualist. I do not see that there is any 
need of a second interpreter. 

The Wesleyan. You are aware, sir, that 
these very writings, on which you profess to 
rely, are interpreted by the Eoman Catholic 
Church in a sense wholly different to that 
which you put upon them ; and this, too, not 
only as to two or three doctrines, but I may 
say as to the whole scope of theology ; at least, 
as to all questions of authority and final ap- 
peal, as well as to the character of Christian 
worship. You are aware also that the Ee- 
f ormers interpreted them variously ; and so did 
the Caroline and Georgian clergy. You are 



English Protestantism. 55 

aware that the bishops and clergy of your own 
communion have never been able to agree, 
during three centuries, as to what was the 
definite interpretation to be put upon them. 
Finally, you are aware that, at this very day, 
the bishops and clergy of your own communion 
are so divided as to what was the teaching of 
the Primitive Church, that each man may be 
said to be his own Primitive Church, in the 
sense that he not only interprets it but creates 
it. Now, sir, I return once more to my ques- 
tion : Who is your authority for all the doctrines 
you teach, in regard to the interpretation of 
Patristic Writings? 

The Ritualist (after another painful pause) . 
I am not aware of any living authority on the 
subject. 

The Wesleyan, So that it comes to this: 
You take upon yourself to teach your own 
Church, to teach the Eoman Church, to teach 
all Non-Conformists, myself included, what is 
the alone, primitive. Catholic Creed ; while 
you are forced to admit that you have no more 
authority than I have, for each one, or for 
every one, of your doctrines. Now I knew 



56 The Cornedy of 

this; but I wanted the audience to hear you 
say it. I wanted the audience to apprehend 
the' absolute nullity of that authority on the 
strength of which you propose to dictate terms 
of communion. You, sir, have no authority 
beyond your own private judgment; and I 
therefore, for myself, decline to " wait" till you 
have reconstituted the doctrine, worship, and 
devotion of the Church of England ; or to sub- 
mit my conscience to an arbiter who is on a 
level with myself in the claim to be the best 
judge of his own orthodoxy. (General cheer- 
ing, with a mixture of disappointment and 
irritation on the part of the High Church An- 
glicans in the hall.) 

The Ritualist Delegate, You make one grand 
mistake in your reasoning, because you ignore 
the primary distinction in our positions. The 
Kitualists claim to be the heirs of the primi- 
tive teachers. Non- Conformists make no such 
claim, but rely exclusively on their interpreta- 
tion of the Scriptures. 

The Wesley an. You are in error, sir, in as- 
serting that Non-Conformists ignore the au- 
thority of the primitive writers and teachers of 



English Protestantism. 57 

the Christian Church. They only do precisely 
what you do: choose their period, and use their 
own sense in interpretation. And as to the 
interpretation of the Scriptures, they also do 
precisely what you do — with this indeed highly 
important distinction: they accept the Scrip- 
tures as the sole deposit of Divine Truth, and 
put the writings of the early Christians into a 
secondary place. You interpret the Scriptures 
to your own liking, while you also do the same 
with all Christian writers, whom you never- 
theless call your sole doctrinal interpreters in 
regard to the doctrinal meaning of the Scrip- 
tures. Thus you double the difficulties of pri- 
vate judgment, by interpreting hoth the Scrip- 
tures and their interpreters. Indeed, I must 
be permitted to state the case with more ampli- 
tude. You, the Eitualists, not only interpret 
the Scriptures and the Early Writers, but you 
also interpret the whole of Catholic teaching: 
you interpret the Councils, the Saints, the Doc- 
tors, the spiritual mystics ; the early, the me- 
diaeval, the modern commentators; nay, the 
Church throughout all time and in all lands. 
You sit as supreme judge over past and pres- 



58 The Comedy of 

ent; and, while affecting to respect only au- 
thority, you summon to your bar all pontiffs 
and all hierarchies, and distribute your awards 
or sentences at your own sweet will. You, the 
Eitualists, are in short the impersonation of 
Divine authority, while affecting to obey an 
authority which does not exist. You are per- 
petually talking about the dead and buried 
Primitive Church, which you have resusci- 
tated, each one of you, in your inmost self; 
and which you '^obey" because you can make 
it teach just what you like. Now I call this 
the ultimate grotesqueness of Catholic parod)'. 
Not one authority, but a thousand authori- 
ties in one — that one being your individual, 
judicial self — is the supreme imposture of 
this modern Eitualist sham. (Cries of " Too 
strong: apologize, apologize.") I apologize, 
sir, for using too plain language ; but since I 
am charged with ignoring the authority of 
Primitive Writers — with preferring my own 
authority to that of the dead — I am obliged 
to rejoin that I at least do not profess to 
obey an authority which I have absorbed 
into the inner consciousness of my self-suffi- 



English Protestantism, 59 

ciency. (Cries of '' Oh, oh," with various com- 
ments.) 

The President. Very interesting as is this 
discussion, it is rather a wandering from our 
purpose. I desire to bring the reverend speak- 
er back to the original question: How shall 
we find a solution of sectarian differences? 

The Wesleyan, I thank you, sir, for recall- 
ing me to the main question ; yet I venture to 
say respectfully that the attitude of the last 
speaker was absolutely fatal to that question : 
indeed it narrowed the whole controversy to 
this alternative: ''Eitualism, or no religion at 
all." Now I, for one, sincerely respect Eoman 
Catholics who say to me, '' Obey the Catholic 
Church, as I do;" but I cannot believe in the 
mental consistency — as to the moral consist- 
ency, I should not presume to express any 
opinion — of those who say to me, ^'Obey me, 
for I alone am the truthful interpreter of the 
Catholic faith." I should as soon think of 
obeying the Archbishop of Canterbury, who, 
however, never affects to teach anybody ; and 
who lives only to cherish the worldly-wise 
principle, quieta non mover e, as of submitting 



60 The Comedy of 

to a new authority, which cannot trace its 
own origin ; does not know who was its father, 
or who its mother ; only exists by the repudia- 
tion of three centuries of Protestant ancestry, 
as well as of a dozen centuries of Eoman Ca- 
tholicism, and by tagging itself on to what 
it calls the Early Church, which it affirms to 
have been dead and buried before Constantine. 
C' No, no, " from the Ritualist Delegate.) Well, 
sir, will you fix the date of the demise of that 
primitive authority to which you cling as 
your sole guide in matters of faith? 

The Ritualist Delegate, There was no de- 
mise. There was only a subsequent incrusta- 
tion of error. 

The Wesleyan, Pardon me if I repeat that 
statement to the audience: ''There was no 
demise of the authority ; there was only a sub- 
sequent incrustation of error." It follows, 
therefore, that the same authority justified 
the incrustation of error which had justified 
the teaching of truth ; that the same author- 
ity which had taught apostolic truth in the 
first centuries taught soul-destroying heresies 
in the following centuries; so that, as the 



English Protestantism. 61 

Anglican Homilies express it, ''By the space 
of eight hundred years and more, laity and 
clergy, learned and unlearned, all ages, sects, 
and degrees of men, women, and children of 
the whole of Christendom were drowned in 
abominable idolatry." This same authority 
again, at the time of the Reformation, turned 
the whole Christian system upside down; and 
as though this were not enough in the way of 
fickleness, this same authority has now reversed 
the Reformation, or reformed the Reforma- 
tion into Ritualism. I believe this is what is 
called by the Ritualists ''Continuity," or the 
continuousness of an identity which was lost. 
We hear a good deal in these days of this Con- 
tinuity ; and as the assumption trenches close- 
ly upon our subject — the Ritualists refusing 
to us Non-Conformists the Continuity which 
they say gives them the right to teach us — I 
may be justified in lingering upon it for one 
moment. Briefiy, this hypothesis of Conti- 
nuity stands thus : The early ages, so say the 
Ritualists, were not Roman Catholic. The 
middle ages tuere most certainly Roman Cath- 
olic. The first thi-ee hundred years after the 



G2 The Comedy of 

Reformation were Protestant. The last forty 
years have been the same as Primitive Chris- 
tianity. Thus Continuity involves three 
mighty changes. The Church of Christ began 
with a pure Christianity. That was a fair 
start. Change 1, it was transformed into 
Roman Catholicism. Change 2, it was trans- 
formed into intense Protestantism. Change 3, 
it was transformed into Ritualism — which is 
assumed to be Primitive Christianity. This is 
Continuity: the Continuity of the admittedly 
non-continuous, or of the three-times-turned- 
completely -upside-down Christianity. And the 
Ritualists are the sole heirs of this Continuity. 
They are the sole heirs, that is, of the Primi- 
tive Authority; which — having changed its 
mind about the fourth or fifth century, and 
turned Roman Catholic for twelve centuries, 
then changed its mind in the sixteenth centur}^ 
and turned Protestant, and then again changed 
its mind in the nineteenth century, and turned 
Ritualist — is still the one, sole. Divine author- 
ity for teaching unchangeable truth, and is 
now possessed solely by the Ritualists. Sir, I 
cannot ask my brother Wesley ans to turn Rit- 



English Protestantism. 63 

ualists. (Laughter.) I can understand the 
claim of an authority to be Divine, if that au- 
thority have never reversed its own teaching ; 
but an authority which has three times re- 
versed its own teaching — and it is the Ritual- 
ists who assert this, not I — has no more claim 
to be Divine than has a weathercock. I could 
as soon 

The Ritualist. I am sorry to interrupt you, 
but you are confusing two things, which are 
quite distinct: authority, and the abuses of 
authority, * Two out of the three great 
changes you have alluded to, in illustrating 
what you suppose to be Continuity, sprang 
from the abuses, not from the authority; 
the Divine institution of authority remain- 
ing intact. 

The Wesley an. If there were abuses of au- 
thority, the authority must have been respon- 
sible for the abuses ; nay more, the very author- 
ity itself must have been an abuse ; for the 
abuses of a teaching authority cannot possibly 
be external to that authority; they must be 
necessarily internal, inherent; since, if it be 
the province of a teaching authority to teach ^^ 



64 The Comedy of 

truths, and that authority teach hes instead of 
truths, it is the authority itself which is crim- 
inal, and which is thus proved to be no Divine 
authority at all. For my part, I do not believe 
in the Divine authority of a teaching* Church, 
and I am therefore indej)endent of your hy- 
pothesis; but for you, sir, who do believe in it, 
there is the obligation of demonstrating how 
an authority which is divinely appointed to 
teach the truth can be perpetually contradict- 
ing itself through the ages. 

(No answer being given, there were cries of 
"Answer, answer," until the Ritualist Dele- 
gate, who had taken time to consider, replied 
by the very sensible observation :) 

The Ritualist. An authority could only al- 
ways be exempt from doctrinal change pro- 
vided that authority were infallible. The 
Church of England does not attribute Infalli- 
bility to the Catholic Church — subsequently to 
the age called Apostolic. 

The Wesleyan. Good. Then if the Teaching 
Church, which succeeded to the Apostolic age, 
was not infallible, in what sense can you call 
it a Teaching Church? 



English Protestantism, 65 

The Ritualist. As the authoritative suc- 
cessor to the Apostohc age. 

The Wesleyan, Authoritative in the sense 
that it might teach hes, or might, by a happy 
chance, teach some truths? 

The Ritualist. FaUibility certainly implies 
that the Church might teach lies ; and history, 
I fear, shows that it has done so; yet had 
Christendom not merited the awful punishment 
of authoritative falsehood, it is quite certain 
that so great a scourge would not have been 
inflicted. 

The Wesleyan, And who merited this 
scourge of authoritative falsehood: the Teach- 
ing Church or the Taught Church? 

The Ritualist, Probably both. It is an aw- 
ful mystery. 

The Wesleyan, I confess I do not see any 
mystery at all ; I only see the most outrageous 
absurdity. On my theory — that there is not, 
and never was, one divinely appointed teaching 
authority — there is no need to be always cast- 
ing about for apologies ; but on your theory — = 
that there is, and always was, one divinely ap- 
pointed Teaching Church — there is a perfect 



66 The Comedy of 

smashing of both the Divine equity and of 
common sense. You say that the Divine 
Founder of the Christian Church appointed one 
authority to teach the truth. This authority 
must be of course always Hving, always audi- 
ble; otherwise it can be no authority at all. 
No sooner does your Divine authority get well 
started, than — if I may be pardoned the famil- 
iar expression — it goes to the bad; so that ''for 
eight hundred years and more" that authority 
which was to teach truth ; which was to con- 
demn with the sharpest precision the slightest 
heresy ; which was to stand out like a city set 
on a hill, and whose voice was to be trumpet- 
tongued through the ages — has done nothing 
but stumble from one falsehood to another, 
from superstition to idolatry, from heresy to 
apostasy ; until at last the poor old impostor, 
worn out probably by old age, is obliged to ask 
a few Eitualists in a northern island called 
England to kindly undertake its reconstruction, 
and see whether it be not possible to dress it 
up in some borrowed clothes, so as to make it 
look respectable before it dies. (Much laugh- 
ter, with discordant cries and hisses.) 



English Protestantism, 67 

The President. I have been unwilling to in- 
terrupt you, yet I must assume, from the 
tenor of your censures, that you -do not wish 
for any reconciliation with the Church of Eng- 
land. Now as reconciliation was the one ob- 
ject of this council, I believe I only express the 
general opinion of the audience, when I say 
that you have frustrated that object. (Some 
cheering, with suppressed ironical observa- 
tions.) 

The Wesleyan, To prove to you, sir, how 
thoroughly in earnest I am in my desire for 
reconciliation with the Church of England, I 
pledge you my honor that I will be received 
into the Church of England to-morrow — if 
any one can tell me what the Church of Eng- 
land is. 

(A few minutes having passed, and no an- 
swer having been given to this challenge, the 
delegate proceeded :) 

Well, sir, I will be more generous still. I 
pledge you my honor that I will be received into 
the Church of England to-morrow, if any one 
can even prove to me that the Church of Eng- 
land exists. 



68 The Comedy of 

(Much laughter, with calls upon the Angli- 
can Delegate to ''reply." The Eitualist Dele- 
gate remaining seated, some of the audience 
made a call for ''the Low Church Delegate;" 
and the invitation, after a pause, was ac- 
cepted.) 

The Low Church Delegate ( who rose with 
a genial smile, and was evidently more amused 
than he was pained). I am the happy pos- 
sessor of a benefice in the Church of England; 
indeed, to speak truly, I have two benefices; 
arid I have also a canonry in one of our beau- 
tiful cathedrals; so I believe I may answer 
for at least the existence of the institution 
which, as we all know, is called the Church of 
England . 

The Wesleyan. You could not have ex- 
pressed the fact better: "The institution which 
is called the Church of England." But it was 
not the existence of the institution I wanted 
proved — we all know the fact of that existence 
— it was the existence of the Church, the 
Church of England. May I ask you to prove 
the existence of the Church? 

The Low Church Delegate, I should have 



English Protestantism. 69 

thought that the existence of the institution 
was the same thing with the existence of the 
Church; since the institution could have no 
reason of being, except in the fact that it was 
a Church. 

The Wesleyan. Pardon me, but that is to 
beg the question. I must ask you, first, to 
define for me what is ''the Church;" and next 
to show that the ''institution called the Church 
of England" fulfils the requirements of the 
definition. If you can do this, I have pledged 
myself to become an Anglican. 

The Low Church Delegate (after a pause). 
As to the definition of a Church — I cannot use 
the definite article, the Church, in the sense in 
which a Ritualist would use it — I should say 
that it was an association of Christians who 
were bound together by a common belief and 
a common worship. And as to the Church of 
England being a Church, I should imagine 
that the common acceptance of its Articles and 
its Formularies, together with the common 
acceptance of its form of worship, would entitle 
it to be regarded as a Church. 

The Wesleyan Delegate. I regret that I have 



70 The Coinedy of 

to prove you wrong out of your own mouth. 
An hour or so ago, you were arguing on this 
very platform that, because tlie Archbishop of 
Canterbury — who is the head of the Estabhsh- 
ment, and who may be supposed therefore to 
know something about its teaching — approved 
everything that everybody beheved about 
everything, therefore there could be no reason 
why Non-Conformists of all shades should not 
come inside the Archbishop's happy family. 
May I ask you how you reconcile this wild lux- 
uriance of heretical pravity — this fact of every 
man being his ov/n Supreme Pontiff — with 
the "common'^^ acceptance of a doctrinal stand- 
ard, and the "commoii^^ acceptance of a pre- 
scribed ritual? I am quite disposed to accept 
your definition that " a Church is an association 
of Christians who are bound together by a com- 
mon belief and a common worship;" but since 
you have proved in regard to the Church of 
England — and the Broad Church Delegate 
proved the fact quite as lucidly as you did, in 
his able exhortation to Non-Conformists to 
'^stop outside" — that there is no such thing as 
a common belief in the Church of England,. 



English Protestantism, 71 

how do you prove that the Church of England 
is a Church? 

The Loiv Church Delegate. I admit that 
there are immeasurable varieties of interpreta- 
tion ; still I would hazard the opinion that the 
existence of prescribed Formularies, to which 
the clergy are bound to assent at their ordina- 
tion, presupposes some accord in point of doc- 
trine. 

The Wesley an Delegate. Presupposes ! I am 
aware that the Church of England presupposes 
everything ; and that, to begin with, it presup- 
poses its own existence. ^ But now, sir, if you 
will allow me, I want to ask you this question — 
which properly I ought to ask of the Eitualist 
Delegate, since it is with his principles, not 
with yours, I am contending : Does the exist- 
ence of Formularies prove the existence of the 
Church, of the one only authoritative Church 
of this country, apart from these three primary 
requisites: (1) authority to prescribe Formu- 
laries ; (2) authority to interpret Formularies ; 
(3) authority to compel obedience, or to ex- 
communicate? 

The Loiv Church Delegate, You are now 



72 The Comedij of 

taking me outside my particular province. / 
am the Low Church Delegate, not the Eitualist 
Delegate ; and I do not believe in Church au- 
thority in a doctrinal sense, I only believe in it 
in the sense of conventional harmony. Pray 
refer to the Ritualist Delegate for an answer to 
academic questions, which he alone in this 
council can properly formulate. 

The RihiaUst Delegate, Will the Wesleyan 
Delegate kindly reconstruct his question? 

The Wesleyan Delegate. My assertion being 
that the Church of England does not exist — in 
the sense, that is, of ^the Authoritative Teach- 
ing Body — I ask: (1) Where is your authority 
to prescribe Formularies? (2) Where is your 
authority to interpret Formularies? (3) Where 
is your authority to compel obedience, or to 
excommunicate ? 

The Ritualist Delegate, It would be insin- 
cere in me to give any other answer than 
that, though the Church ought to possess all 
such powers, at present they are usurped by 
the Houses of Parliament, which are supreme 
even over the Houses of Convocation. As 
The Guardian newspaper — a most respecta- 



English Protestantism, 73 

ble organ, though not sufficiently ''advanced" 
to meet my views — expressed the truth in the 
year 1890: "Not one jot or one tittle of 
the Prayer-Book can be varied except with 
the consent of Parliament." And again, the 
same organ stated, ''once the supremacy was 
royal; now it is parliamentary. Once it was 
exercised by an anointed king; now it is ex- 
ercised by a minister of any or no religion, 
who is virtually elected by a majority in a 
House of Commons, which is itself composed 
of men of all religions or none." This is in- 
deed an awful truth, but it is a truth. I look 
forward to a happier time, when the "union 
of Church and State" will not mean "the 
State dominant over the Church," but the 
Church teaching the State, as well as all Eng- 
lishmen, what is the Truth once delivered to 
the saints. 

The Wesleyan Delegate. I am charmed with 
the candor of your admission, though I cannot 
congratulate you on the hopefulness of your 
prospects. (Laughter.) I will take your an- 
swer, however, as it stands ; and I now proceed 
to prove to you that the Church of England 



74 - The Comedy of 

does not exist— in the sense, that is, that Rit- 
uaHsts put upon the word '^Church." I am 
obhged to argue on hypothesis ; for, unfortu- 
nately for RituaHsts, there is no reconcihng 
First Principles with painfully obvious facts or 
realizations. 

Now this so-called Church of England pre- 
sumes to dictate to Non-Conformists, on the 
ground that it has ecclesiastical authority. 
This assumption is of course limited to High 
Churchmen, Low Churchmen being mere Dis- 
senters plus Episcopacy. And this authority 
the High Church party seeks to justify by three 
claims, not one of which is advanced by Non- 
Conformists: (1) that it inherits the authority 
of the Early Church ; (2) that by this inheri- 
tance it can decide what is dogmatic truth 
with a better warranty than can the Roman 
or the Greek Church ; (3) that it possesses the 
Apostolical Succession ; and by that possession 
has the right to say to Non-Conformists; '' You 
have no true clergy, you have only ministers, 
pastors, or preachers." My reply to these 
three claims is as follows: 

(1) This claim of the Church of England to 



English Protestantism. 75 

inherit the authority of the Early Church is 
pure assumption and is contradicted by fact; 
for an inheritance must come by lawful heir- 
ship, it cannot be appropriated at our own 
caprice; and no authority throughout the 
whole world has ever said to the Protestant 
Establishment, '' You are the lawful heir of 
the Early Church, and all other claimants to 
the heritage are impostors." 

(2) The authority therefore to dogmatize in 
matters of faith is only self-conferred or imag- 
inary ; it is an authority which was created by 
Henry VIII. and by Queen Elizabeth ; and the 
penalties for not accepting that new authority 
were fines, deprivations, imprisonment, and 
death. The tv/o Acts of Supremacy and Uni- 
formity — fathered by Henry VIII. and Queen 
Elizabeth — were the sole parents of the au- 
thority of the Anglican Church ; the House of 
Commons and the House of Lords were its 
godfathers, and this too with reluctance and 
under compulsion; and, as Abbot Feckenham 
of Westminster told the House of Lords, when 
they were pusillanimously discussing the Eoyal 
Pleasure, ''they would apostatize from that 



76 The Comedy of 

faith which had been the religion of this island 
for no less than IJrOO years, and would set up 
a new religion and a new authority." The 
Church of England, therefore, by the admis- 
sion of its contemporaries, has no more claim 
to be heir to Primitive Authority than enforced 
Acts of Parliament could accord to it ; Acts of 
Parliament passed under such crushing royal 
tyranny, that Henry VIII. put to death 72,000 
persons — the noble Fisher and the heroic More 
at their head — within a few months after pro- 
claiming himself to be Pope; and in Queen 
Elizabeth's time, the Lords, after fearful pres- 
sure, could only secure a frightened majority 
of three for the horribly cruel Act of Uniform- 
ity; while the Commons, as Froude relates, 
would never have passed the Act at all, ''had 
not Cecil 'flung the question into a garboyle, ' 
and carried his point in the confusion." The 
whole bench of English bishops in Elizabeth's 
time — the trimming Kitchen of Landaff ex- 
cepted — denounced the bill, and resolutely op- 
posed it ; and the clergy, as a body, in spite of 
Elizabeth's threats, stood firmly by the Roman 
Catholic bishops. Heath, Archbishop of York 



English Protestantism. 77 

— in the vacancy of Canterbury the acting and 
responsible Primate of the EngHsh Church — 
protested in the House of Lords in these words 
—and I quote them only to show how the 
Ritualist theory of Continuity was repudiated 
by the real heirs of the Roman Church: ''If 
by this relinquishing of the See of Rome there 
was none other matter than a withdrawal of 
our obedience from the Pope's person, Paul, the 
fourth of that name, . . . then the cause were 
not of such great importance, as it is in very 
deed, when, by the relinquishing and forsak- 
ing the See of Rome, we must forsake and flee 
these four things: all General Councils; all 
canonical and ecclesiastical laws of the Church 
of Christ; the judgment of all Christian 
princes; and we must forsake and flee the 
unity of the Christian Church; and by leap- 
ing out of Peter's ship hazard ourselves to be 
overwhelmed and drowned in the waters of 
schism, sects, and divisions." Now, as a civil 
government, a Parliamentary government, a 
worldly and Queen-fearing government could 
have no more to do with a spiritual jurisdic- 
tion than it could have to do with the occu- 



78 The Comedy of 

pations of the angels, it follows that Queen 
Elizabeth's Church appropriated an authority 
which, if it ever belonged to the early Church, 
could not by lawful heritage belong to her. 
And (3) as to the Apostolic Succession, neither 
the Roman Church nor the Greek Church, nor 
even the obscure Syrian body in Western 
India, allow that the Church of England pos- 
sesses it; while most of the Reformers and 
three-fourths of the early Anglicans regarded 
it as not essential to a true ministry, and as 
rather savoring of priesthood — which they 
abhorred. 

I affirm therefore that the Church of Eng- 
land does not exist ; that there is not and can- 
not be such a Church — and remember, I pray 
you, that I am arguing with the Ritualists, 
with the sole view of demonstrating their fal- 
lacies — and I defy the Ritualists to prove that 
there is such a Church ; though it is easy to 
prove the existence of the Establishment. But 
the Establishment is not the Church ; any more 
than Acts of Parliament are spiritual dogmas, 
or than Queen Elizabeth was the legitimate 
daughter of Henry VIII., or had the power to 



English Protestantism. 79 

create a faith and to enforce it. And now, sir 
(and here the delegate turned to the President) , 
I wish to propose to the Ritualist Delegate 
these three questions; and if he can satisfac- 
torily answer them I will make my submission 
to his Establishment : (1) Can the Church of 
England be said to exist — exist, remember, as 
that one divinely appointed institution, which 
is to teach both all Anglicans and all Dissent- 
ers, ay, and to teach the Eoman Church and 
the Greek Church — when the very authority 
from which it professes to have sprung had 
been dead and buried for upward of ten cen- 
turies at the time when Queen Elizabeth feigned 
to exhume it; dead and buried, that is, as a 
teaching authority; for an authority which 
could teach lies for ''eight hundred years and 
more" — lies upon almost every doctrine, every 
devotion — could not possibly be said to be a 
living authority ; it was not only dead, it was 
corrupt, it was an offence to the very memory 
of all good Christians. (2) Could, then, this 
dead authority suddenly jump up again into 
life; suddenly resume the Divine position of 
the Alone Teacher ; and this too with no new 



80 The Comedy of 

mission, no new dispensation, but by the om- 
nipotent divinity of an illegitimate sovereign, 
who could only reign by creating a brand-new 
Church? And when the Eitualists — for it is 
with them I am arguing — have answered these 
two questions; when they have solved the dif- 
ficulty of a Lying authority being a Divine 
authority, and of a therefore Dead authority 
becoming a Living authority; with the two 
additional difficulties of their being themselves 
heirs to this dead authority, and of their being 
omnipotent to rekindle its Divine life; then 
let them tell me, (3) how an Apostolic Suc- 
cession, which was passed down the Eoman 
Church through many centaries, can by possi- 
bility have devolved upon Anglican clergymen ; 
seeing that that very Succession was always 
associated in the Catholic mind with three 
things which were never known in the Church 
of England: (1) The Sacrifice of the Mass, (2) 
the Perpetual Presence upon the altar, and (3) 
Absolution in the Catholic Sacrament of Pen- 
ance. If it were possible, even historically, 
that that Apostolic Succession which was called 
the pledge of true sacrifice, true absolution — 



English Protestantism, 81 

for this, remember, is the belief of High 
Churchmen — could devolve upon clergymen 
who, up to the time of the Oxford Movement, 
anathematized both Sacrifice and Absolution; 
yet, morally, such an identity would so shock 
the sense of fitness, that to believe in it would 
make Christianity ridiculous. That the Angli- 
can clergy have not the Roman priesthood is 
proved by their never having done anything 
that the Eoman priesthood always did; never 
offered the Sacrifice ; never bent the knee be- 
fore the Presence ; never sat in the tribunal of 
penance; and also by their having always 
shunned and deprecated virginity — which to 
Catholic priests seemed the fitting state for 
their office. And finally, how could it be pos- 
sible that throughout the long reign of Eliza- 
beth — ay, and in many a year after she was 
dead — the very priesthood which was Eoman 
Catholic, and which therefore had the true 
Succession according to the sincere conviction 
of the modern Eitualists, should have been 
hanged, drawn, and quartered for saying Mass ; 
and that the Eoman Catholic party should have 
been imprisoned and financially ruined for dar- 



82 The Comedy of 

ing to attend at a Catholic altar or at a Catho- 
lic confessional, or even so much as to give 
shelter to a Catholic priest; while all the while 
these very Anglican authorities who were so 
bitterly persecuting the Catholic Faithful be- 
lieved in the very same holy Mass which they 
were holding up to the execration of all man- 
kind, and in the very same Sacrifice, Presence, 
and Penance which these martyrs were cruelly 
tortured for insisting upon? Entertaining as 
I do totally different opinions from those which 
are esteemed orthodox by my Roman brethren, 
I am yet obliged to say that I deem it to be 
incredible — that I regard it as the wildest flight 
of the imagination — that the Orders of the 
Anglican Church and the Orders of the Roman 
Church should be one and the same Orders of 
Christ's instituting. If this were so, then did 
Christ institute two distinct and contradictory 
Orders of clergy: the one a sacerdotal, a sac- 
rificial order, which was custodian of Mysteries, 
of Seven Sacraments; the other a ministerial 
and protesting Order, which was appointed to 
utterly obliterate Catholic priesthood, and to 
pass three whole centuries in vilifying it. No, 



English Protestantism, 83 

sir, common sense is my sufficient theologian 
for proving the non-identity of the two Orders. 
And common sense is my sufficient logician for 
demonstrating this simple, honest truth: that 
a Church which cojDies three-fourths of its rit- 
ual, as well as three-fourths of its doctrines, 
from a Church which it hates and cruelly 
slanders, is not made any more trustworthy 
by claiming what it has not, and by imitating 
what all its ancestors denounced. (Considera- 
ble sensation, with disturbance.) 

I think, sir, I am warranted in my assertion 
that the Church of England cannot be said to 
exist ; that there is no such thing on this earth 
as the Church of England ; for that an institu- 
tion shpuld profess itself to be Divine, while all 
the world knows that it is the most human 
thing on earth, is an absurdity which is so 
gross and palpable as to be offensive. No one 
respects his Anglican friends more than I do. 
No one more admires the personal diligence of 
the Eitualists, or more appreciates their cul- 
ture and their refinement. This, however, 
has nothing to do with the subject. I am 
asked to submit myself to the Establishment, 



84 The Comedy of 

on the ground that it is not an Estabhshment 
but '^The Church." My answer is that I posi- 
tively decHne to submit myself to ''The 
Church" which is no Church in a teaching, 
Divine sense, whose origin was violence and 
fraud, whose history has been selfish and per- 
secuting, and whose philosophy is a jumble of 
contradictions. 

(The delegate resumed his seat amid the 
applause of the Dissenting party, but under 
tokens of disapproval from all the Anglicans. 
The President somewhat nervously looked at 
his watch, and then engaging in conversation 
with the other delegates, appeared to arrive at 
a conclusion which was welcome.) 

The President, Perhaps as we have r.eached 
a certain point in the debate — though unhap- 
pily we have not approached to the solution for 
which we had all of us earnestly hoped, ear- 
nestly prayed — it may be as well if we take ad- 
vantage of the pause to enjoy a little rest and 
fresh air. ('' Hear, hear, " and some amuse- 
ment.) The next speaker who was to have 
addressed you was Captain Banner, an es- 
teemed representative of the Salvation Army; 



English Protestantism, 85 

but he has ud fortunately • been obliged to 
absent himself for two hours, to ^' storm a 
citadel" in the neighborhood of St. Giles's 
(laughter) ; and I scarcely see how we can 
proceed further with advantage, unless he be 
present at our deliberations. He has, I be- 
lieve, an important communication to make to 
us which should precede our further efforts 
after Eeunion. I propose, therefore, that we 
separate till three o'clock; when we must hope 
that there will be additional light thrown upon 
our subject by the able speakers whom we 
shall have the pleasure of listening to. (Cheers, 
and exeunt omnes.) 



LUNCHEON. 

There was an obvious sense of relief among 
the multitude, when escaping from the cramped 
misery of Exeter Hall. Most of the wearied 
ones sought solace or invigoration in one of the 
many places of refreshment in the Strand ; not 
a few even condescending to soothe their too 
depressed spirits at the bars of the ever-hospi- 
table public-houses. The Editor of these pages 
crossed the road to '' Simpson's Divan," the 
well-known dining-house opposite Exeter Hall; 
where he was rejoiced by meeting several old 
acquaintances, who, having just come out of 
the crush of British Protestantism, were bent 
upon the same object of restoration. Two 
clergymen and three laymen joined the Editor 
at a private table, where the boiled chicken 
and the Chablis might favor repose. 

On coming out of Exeter Hall various ven- 
dors of light literature — chiefly of a more or 

less theological character — had sought pur- 

87 



88 The Comedy of 

chasers of such pubUcations as the following : 
'' A Form for the Admission of Papists into the 
Church of England," an ''Annual Eeport of 
the Church Association," and some recent 
copies of various Chiirch of England news- 
papers. The five friends of the Editor had 
liberally purchased such productions; and, 
while luncheon was being served, they care- 
lessly turned over the pages of what might, or 
might not, prove to be amusing. 

The Editor of these pages was busy looking 
at his short-hand notes; and for a few minutes 
was glad not to be interrupted. He was won- 
dering anxiously whether he had made mis- 
takes in his reporting, and was about to refer 
a few points to his friends, when one of them, 
Mr. Carruthers — who was a rising young bar- 
rister, and who was sitting just opposite to 
him at the luncheon table — began to laugh 
over the contents of his recent purchase. '' Oh, 
I say, do listen to this," he pleaded; and so 
every one gave him the best attention. '' Army- 
tage," he continued — addressing one of the 
company who was just then deeply absorbed 
in a newspaper — ''this is the very thing to in- 



English Protestantism, 89 

terest yon; for you are a convert to Rome; 
and this-is the proper book for you to study— 
for the enhghtenment of your wandering in- 
teUigence, and to bring you back into the para- 
dise you have left. The title of this book is: 
'A Form of Admitting Converts from the 
Church of Eome to the Church of England; 
and for Eestoring those who have Relapsed; 
prepared by the Upper House of Convocation, 
A.D. 1714, and amended by the same, a.d. 
1890. Price sixpence. ' Now, my dear Army- 
tage, I do not know whether you wish to be 
'restored' to the Church of England"— (''No, I 
do not," said Mr. Armytage)— ''but supposing 
you should have that desire at a future day, it 
must interest you to know what you will have 
to swear to. The 'restored' one is informed in 
this pamphlet— I beg pardon, in this sacred 
ordinal of Convocation— that the Church of 
England is a true and sound part of Christ's 
Holy Catholic Church; and lest he should har= 
bor a doubt on the subject, he is called on to 
aflSrm that he believes in 'the Supremacy of 
the Queen's Majesty by law established;' 
though whether that means that the Queen's 



90 The Comedy of 

Majesty is established, or the Queen's Suprem- 
acy is estabUshed, or the Church of such Ma- 
jestic Supremacy is estabhshed, the compilers 
have not been careful to define ; but it is added 
that the Established Something, whatever it 
be, is declared in the 37th Article of Keligion 
to be 'agreeable to the word of God;' a 
declaration which should be highly valuable to 
the converted soul. After this it appears that 
the bishop is to give an absolution from the 
frightful iniquity of having not believed in the 
Supremacy of the Queen's Majesty by law es- 
tablished ; and so the penitent is received into 
the Eoyal Fold, into the parliamentary and by 
law established Church of England. It is not 
added how a convert ought to feel after this 
highly spiritual and Queen-reverencing per- 
formance ; but there can be no doubt that he 
would immediately repair to Windsor Castle, 
prostrate himself at the feet of her Pontifical 
Majesty, and say penitently, ' Holy Mother, 
give me your blessing. ' " 

After this jest had been appreciated by the 
company, with lively comments and various 
suggestions for improvement, Mr. Middleton, 



English Protestantism, 91 

who was a brilliant Eitualistic clergyman, 
added his contribution to the entertainment. 
Mr. Middleton, who had only been one year in 
priest's orders, was obviously unsettled in his 
clerical mind in regard to his strained Angli- 
can position ; indeed he has since been received 
into the Roman Church, to which the consist- 
ency of his manly character naturally impelled 
him. 

''That is a good joke you have read to us, 
Carruthers," said Mr. Middleton, ''but I think 
I have got even a better. I too gave sixpence 
for the ' Annual Report of the Church Associ- 
ation,' and I really think it is worth the 
money. My eye catches this one passage, and 
I will read it to you; and I shall certainly 
write immediately to the publishers of your 
'Form for Receiving Converts,' and propose 
that they interleave this passage in the 'Form.' 
'Under the advice of its lawyers' " — and here 
Mr. Middleton proceeded to read from the 
Annual Report of the Church Association— 
" 'the Council instituted a second suit, in order 
to bring before the House of Lords the evidence 
that idolatrous ivorsMp had in fact been pub- 



92 The Comedy of 

licly paid before the graven images set up in 
St, PauPs Cathedral. ' Now if you can beat 
that, Carruthers, for a good joke, I shall rec- 
ommend you as a contributor to Punch, The 
comicality of accusing the amiable and accom- 
plished clergymen who conduct the services in 
the Metropolitan Cathedral of Anglicanism of 
'in fact committing idolatry before graven 
injages, ' is only equalled by the sectarian pique 
which such an accusation must demonstrate, 
and by the sense of failure which such Protes- 
tant slanders must imply." 

''Not bad," said Mr. Armytage, who was 
holding a newspaper in his hand, and who had 
glanced at it in the intervals of boiled chicken ; 
'' I think that you, Middleton, have made a val- 
uable purchase — almost as valuable as the 
'Form for Eeceiving Converts. ' But I am now 
going to eclipse you both by my purchase ; if 
you have souls, you wretched Protestants, to 
appreciate it. (Laughter.) I have bought a 
copy of the Church Times, and I can tell you 
that I always enjoy reading that newspaper, 
as a sort of study of the unutterable miseries 
of Outsideism." — "Gently, my dear Army- 



English Protestantism, 93 

tage/' said Mr. Carruthers, "you have only 
been an 'Insider' for six months." — ''Hold 
your tongue, Carruthers, and listen to me, and 
let me see if I can get to the bottom of your 
understanding. Now I always turn instinct- 
ively to the advertisements in religious papers ; 
because I think they strike the key-note of its 
theology; for, whatever the editor may ap- 
prove in leading-article doctrine, he cannot 
control the drolleries of his advertisers. So I 
am going to read to you bits of a dozen adver- 
tisements, taken out of the columns of the 
Clmrcli Times, The advertisements are all by 
Anglican clergymen, who are in want of cure 
of souls— or cure of preferment. Please attend, 
and mind you catch the meaning; because 
these things require to be read below the sur- 
face : 

'"Priest wanted, E. P.;' E. P. standing for 
Eastward Position, and signifying that the 
'priest' must be supposed to be saying Mass — 
which is the last new view of the Anglican 
Communion Service. 

'"Assistant Priest wanted, E. P., Lights;' 
Lights meaning that there will be candles on 



94 The Comedy of 

the communion table, in imitation of the 
Catholic symbolism of doctrine. 'Temporary 
Curate wanted. Mod. High Church;' Mod. 
standing for moderate, and meaning that the 
curate must try to restrain his transcendental 
dispositions, and to remember that, after all, 
he is a Protestant. 'Good Churchman' is an- 
other recommendation, which sounds rather 
equivocal, as suggesting that 'High' or 'Mod.' 
may not be quite up to the standard of 'Good. ' 
'Sound Churchman' is also another adjective 
in the same column ; though I do not know 
whether Soundness is a slight advance upon 
Mod., or a little less developed than 'High.' 
'Distinctly High' is another clergyman's recom- 
mendation, and this seems to denote a suffi- 
cient altitude. 'Priest, married, without fam- 
ily, ' is careful to add that he is 'sound;' while 
'Priest, Catholic, widower, alone,' stirs up 
mixed ideas of what he may be wanting. An- 
other priest offers 'garden and tennis' in return 
for kind clerical services ; another 'a good house, 
garden, pony and trap;' another wants 'trout 
fishing;' and another tries to invite clerical aid 
by the tempting inducement 'no children. ' One 



English Protestantism. 95 

^ more priest says 'everything perfect;' and an- 
other says 'no drawback, ' so that we may rather 
envy the summer prospects of the lucky appli- 
cants. 

"Now what strikes me as so droll in these 
advertisements," continued Mr. Armytage, "is 
not the pleasing variety of religious doctrine — 
that is a matter of course in the Church of 
England— but the claim of the Church Times 
to represent the Catholic Church by advertise- 
ments of scores of Protestant clergymen, whose 
notions of Mod., Sound, High, Good, Distinctly 
High Churchmen might make any Catholic 
child laugh heartily. " 

"Well," said Mr. Langdale, another of the 
little company, and a clergyman of the free- 
and-easy school of believers, untrammelled by 
party or by prejudice: "d propos of your ad- 
vertisements from the Church Times, I must 
tell you of an idea which I have entertained, 
and I should like to hear whether our friend 
Middleton will approve it; That idea is to 
make the editor of the Church Times the 
Responsible and Governing Head of the Church 
of England." (Much laughter; with the ap- 



96 The Comedy of 

proval of Mr. Armytage, '^ The best solution I 
have heard hazarded of the existing im- 
broglio.") '^I am quite serious," continued 
Mr. Langdale. ''At the present moment the 
Church of England has no Head. It has a 
very big body, and very weak legs, but it is 
utterly deficient in a Head. Now the Editor 
of the Church Times is just the man. The 
Church of England, not possessing infallibility, 
that gift naturally devolves upon its news- 
papers; and the Church Times, enjoying Rit- 
ualist pre-eminence, it follows that the irksome 
duties of the Ecclesia Docens have to be per- 
formed by its thoroughly capable editor. He 
does perform them. He tells the Archbishop 
of Canterbury when he is 'shuffling;' he tells 
the Bishop of Worcester that 'one who can 
thus play with first principles and flatly con- 
tradict the Praj'Cr-Book order, stands self- 
condemned. His conduct was inexcusable and 
ought not to pass without grave reprimand 
from the archbishops and bishops of the Prov- 
ince of Canterbury.' This reprimand, not 
being forthcoming from the archbishops and 
bishops, is very properly administered by the 



English Protestantism. 97 

editor. With equal devotion to his own au- 
thority, the editor lectures Convocation as to 
the 'best thing it can do,' in regard to the 
duty of "fasting before Communion;' and he 
also advises his subscribers to ignore a bishop's 
license in respect to the remarrying of divorced 
persons. In short, he is Pontifex Maximus. 
Now I don't like to see a man vrho has such 
great gifts as this editor thrown away upon a 
mere penny paper. Every week he lectures 
the Cathohc Church, and the Anglican Church, 
and the Non-Conformists; tells the Cathohc 
Church where it is 'unscriptural,' and Non- 
Conformists where they are 'schismatical, ' and 
does his duty faithfully in defining dogmatic 
truth, and in rebuking the bishops, clergy, and 
laity who deserve it. Now this is evidently 
just the man the Establishm.ent wants— a 
thoroughly competent Pontiff who lives in 
London. Why not put him over the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, over Convocation, over 
the Queen; and crown him with the triple 
diadem of the new Popedom? I hate to see a 
man wasted." 

Here Mr. Middleton put in a plea, that he 

7 



98 The Comedy of 

thought ''such an appointment would be in- 
vidious, because, as a matter of fact, every one 
of the daily newspapers, besides a good many 
of the weekly, claimed to be able to teach 
everybody everything. For example," contin- 
ued Mr. Middleton, ''I remember when the 
Archbishop of Canterbury gave his judicial 
opinion about Bishop King, the Daily News 
said in a leading article: 'The Archbishop, a 
respectable clergyman, against whose charac- 
ter no one has a word to say, and to whose 
opinion no one attaches the slightest impor- 
tance, has been assisted by five prelates of more 
piety than discretion. ' This is what you may 
call dethroning all Church of England author- 
ity, and re-enthroning it in the arm-chair of a 
single editor. Nor is there any one of the 
English newspapers, from the Times to the 
poor old Bock, that cannot define at a mo- 
ment's notice what the Roman Church would 
take centuries to define; or that is not a 
whole CEcumenical Council in itself — not on 
one doctrine, but on every doctrine, as well as 
on all points of morals and of discipline. No, 
I must protest against selecting one editor for 



English Protestantism. 99 

Supreme Pontiff. My proposal would be this: 
that the editors of all the Church of England 
newspapers should meet once a year in solemn 
conclave; should feel the pulse of the nation 
as to what was most popular (in that particu- 
lar year) in regard to each of the Articles of 
the Creeds; and should fix the national dog- 
matic truth for the next twelvemonth only — 
under pain of excommunication by all the 
editors." 

"My dear Middleton," said Mr. Armytage, 
^' before one week had passed, the Bock would 
excommunicate the Church Times ; the Daily 
News would give such fearful penance to the 
Morning Post^ that the whole of its staff and 
all its compositors would go into a consump- 
tion; while the Times would lay the whole 
Press under an interdict, or would summon all 
the editors to Printing House Square, and make 
an auto dafe of them on Tower Hill." 

At this pointy Mr. Trevor, who was a young 
Cambridge undergraduate, about nineteen, 
and who had not yet taken part in the conver- 
sation, burst forth with the spasmodic obser- 
vation, ''I shall start one more sect." — ''Pray 



100 The Comedy of 

don't, "said all the company at once. — ''I have 
a mathematical mind," continued Mr. Trevor. 
(And the smile that passed round the table did 
not seem to quench that amiable conviction.) 
"I like to see a principle carried out to its ulti- 
mate, to its natural, indeed inevitable superla- 
tive. Now I tell you what has long been my 
idea." (And the company thought that the 
" long" could not be very long.) '' As a matter 
of fact — and of course I start with a postulate, 
as every good mathematician is bound to do — 
every Protestant is his own pontiff. This is 
a postulate which even Euclid would have 
backed. Every Protestant centres in his own 
person a perfect hierarchy, the dogmatic rights 
of the Teaching Church in all ages, an infalli- 
bility on all doctrines to which no pope ever 
laid claim, with a power of excommunicating 
all who differ from him. This being so, there 
is obviously room for one more new sect, which 
should be novel only in the perfect candor of 
its profession. Let this new sect maintain 
boldly : Every man who is born into this world 
is born a complete Catholic Church within him- 
self, with full power to absolve, bind, dispense. 



English Protestantism, 101 

or excommunicate himself — but no one else; 
and thus there is no further reason of being 
for unpleasant remarks about our neighbors, 
for offensive Alliances, Leagues, Unions, or As- 
sociations, or, indeed, for ever mentioning the 
subject of religion to another person. This 
would save all difficulty and inconvenience, 
and would get rid of the perpetual breaches of 
amenity." 

'' What name do you propose to give to your 
new sect?" asked Mr. Armytage. ''I think 
the name would be the only real difficulty." 

''You see," said young Mr. Trevor, ''the 
specialty of my new sect will be this, that 
every one will be a perfect sect within himself. 
Indeed he will be a perfect Church — Ecclesia 
Docens and Ecclesia Discens — so that no one can 
be heretical, can be schismatical, because every 
one will be an integral Catholic Church, and 
therefore can only be a Dissenter from his own 
self, a heretic from his own personal infallibil- 
ity. You catch the sublimity of my conception 
— the all-embracing incarnation of my Catho- 
licity? Well, now as to the name of the New 
Religion — not new, for it is at least as old as 



102 The Comedy of 

Protestantism, but no one has had the courage 
to give it form — I have thought that the sect 
of the Egotistic CathoHcs might do ; or shall 
we say the Impersonated Final Appealists ; or 
the Individual Inf allibilists ; or — but now I 
think of it, the sect would not have any name, 
because there would not be, in reality, any 
sect. When a man said he was Mr. Jones, 
he would say he was the whole Catholic Church ; 
and so of Mr. Smith, Mr. Brown. I think it 
would make the world perfectly delightful, if 
every time you met a man in the street you 
felt you were shaking hands with the Catholic 
Church. As a matter of fact you feel this now. 
But the sublimity of my conception is in the 
profession of a principle, which hitherto has 
been only experimented suh rosa. ^How are 
you. Catholic Church?' would be such a charm- 
ing salutation, as you walked down the Strand 
or Pall Mall; and whether it were " 

But at this point a familiar friend saluted 
Mr. Trevor, and inquired '^when he was going 
in for his Little-go," so that the rest of the fine 
conception was lost. 

And the company, now rising from luncheon, 



English Protestantism, 103 

went for a stroll down the Strand. The Broad 
Church Delegate was met on the way, arm in 
arm with the somewhat didactic Wesley an 
Delegate, and both were evidently enjoying a 
merry chat. Stopping to look into the window 
of a picture dealer, where were portraits of 
some eminent Eitualist clergymen, robed in 
the latest fashions of Anglican ritual, the five 
friends were diverted by noticing the Eev. Se- 
bastian Stole engaged in the same worshipful 
admiration. He was quite lost in the artistic 
study of Catholicity. A portrait of the Bishop 
of Lincoln depicted that prelate in what ap- 
peared to be an abnormally large chasuble ; 
while he was made to carry a pastoral staff, 
and to look very uncomfortable, like a person 
who had borrowed strange clothes. Mr. Army- 
tage could not help the remark: '^Date that 
portrait 1840, instead of 1890, and what would 
Londoners have thought of it — fifty years ago? 
Why, there would have been a commission de 
lunatico inqiiirendo^ and the bishop would 
have been confined during Her Majesty's pleas- 
ure!" The Eev. Sebastian Stole, who was 
gazing on the same picture, appeared to over- 



104 The Comedy of English Protestantism. 

hear the observation, and moved away from 
such pestilent society. 

But as it now wanted only ten minutes to 
three, the friends felt the call of stern duty, 
and went back to the Sanctuary of Opinions. 



THE AFTERNOON. 

It was evident that a new element had been 
imported into the hail; the beautiful Irish 
brogue gently undulating among the crowd, 
like a suggestion of music to British ears. 
Only a few of the morning audience had come 
back for the Second Act; while not half of the 
new-comers were English. Scarcely had the 
first speaker commenced his oration, when 
some critics from the keenly judicial ''sister- 
isle " offered him suggestions or emendations. 

The President, having called on the Salva- 
tionist Delegate to speak on behalf of the Sal- 
vationists, that gentleman responded with avid- 
ity to the invitation, as though he were eager 
to unburden himself of a responsibility. 

The Salvationist Delegate (addressing the 
President). Sir, my proposal is simply this: 
that the whole of the Church of England should 
at once join the Salvation Army, and so be- 

105 



106 The Comedy of 

come absorbed into the True Eeligion. (Loud 
laughter.) You seek for Eeunion. Well, the 
only really united body of Non- Conformists in 
England is the body which I have the honor 
to represent; then why should not the Church 
of England abandon its isolation, which cuts it 
off from the best life of the English masses, and 
so at one and the same time acquire earnest- 
ness for its members, and enhance the sphere 
of the Army's labors and victories? I hold 
in my hand a little book which is called "The 
Doctrines of the Salvation Army ;" and I doubt 
whether there are half a dozen members of the 
Establishment who would not approve of these 
doctrines. When I add that these doctrines 
are '^prepared for the Training Homes by the 
General, "and are thus authorized by the high- 
est authority in. the world, I am persuaded that 
I shall have no difficulty in enlisting every one 
of you under the standard of the great arch- 
priest of Salvationism. 

The Bitualist Delegate, I am sorry to in- 
terrupt you, sir, but you have said that you 
"doubt whether there are half a dozen mem- 
bers of the Establishment who would not ap- 



English Protestantism. 107 

prove of the doctrines in that book." Now, 
I have read tliat book through more than once, 
and I cannot find in it the faintest allusion — 
no, not so much even as by name — to the Sac- 
raments of Baptism and Holy Communion. 
May I ask how you explain this strange silence? 

The Salvationist Delegate. The Army does 
not insist on Sacramental religion; it insists 
only on spiritual change of heart; and, if I 
mistake not, the great majority of Church of 
Englandists are of one mind with the Army in 
that regard. 

The Ritualist Delegate. Pardon me. The 
point is that your General sets forth in this 
doctrinal work the ivhole substance of the Chris- 
tian faith and obligation. No sacrament is in- 
cluded in that faith, and no sacrament is in- 
cluded in that obligation. Now Queen Eliza- 
beth swept away five sacraments out of seven ; 
and this might be regarded as a sufficientlj^ 
free exercise of the Pontifical Sovereignty of a 
vain woman. But your Pontiff, General Booth, 
goes much further. He actually eliminates all 
sacraments from the Christian religion. You, 
sir, may consider General Booth to be ''the 



108 The Comedy of 

highest authority in the world;" but I consider 
him to be no authority at all. ''Who sent 
you?" would be a question he could not an- 
swer. And therefore as you propose to us that 
we should become '^ absorbed" into Salvation- 
ism, I am justified in saying plainly that, as 
you have no Orders and no Sacraments, and 
no authority, but what I may call a Herculean 
Egotism, the Anglo- Catholics could not for a 
moment think of being absorbed into a society 
which is at the best only apologetic or spas- 
modic. . Profoundly as I admire the sterling 
philanthropy of the Army, and the grand aid 
which it has given to the temperance move- 
ment, to call the Army a substitute for the 
Catholic Church, or even so much as an aux- 
iliary to Catholic authority, would be grotesque 
to the very verge of profanity. 

The Salvationist Delegate. I am afraid, sir, 
I must reply to you by a tu qtioque. It is far 
better to be in earnest about a good life, and 
to try to make others in earnest also, than to 
affect to believe in authority while disobeying 
it ; to insist on a Catholic priesthood in a Prot- 
estant Church which has spent three centuries 



English Protestantism. 109 

in vilifying the Catholic priesthood; and to 
ape a character, a faith, and a ritual, which be- 
long only to the Church from which you have 
stolen them ; and which both that Church and 
your own Church refuse to recognize as being 
anything better than a make-believe. (Laugh- 
ter and cheering.) 

The President. We are wandering from the 
subject. Is there any plan, sir, (and here the 
President addressed the Salvationist Delegate) 
which you have it in your power to propose, 
by which the Salvation Army can be brought 
into union with the Church of England? 

The Salvationist Delegate. None, sir, but 
this: that the Church of England should make 
up its mind what it does believe, and give some 
assurance that it will continue in the same 
mind for twelve months; and then the Salva- 
tion Army will take into its consideration 
whether it should admit the Church into cor- 
porate union with itself, subject to the condi- 
tions which it imposes on its members of abso- 
lute obedience to authority. 

The President. And who is to be the Ulti- 
mate Authority in matters of faith? 



110 The Comedy of 

(A voice from the crowd: ^'His Holiness 
Pope Booth the First.") 

The Salvationist Delegate (not heeding the 
interruption). We have no Ultimate Appeal 
but the Scriptures. 

The President. That is the assertion of 
rather more than two hundred sects. But I 
am sure you must agree with me that if the 
Church of England should submit corporately 
to the doctrinal rule of the Salvation Army, 
the twenty millions of seceding Anglicans 
would wish to know whether they were ex- 
changing a weak authority for one which could 
show credentials of being stronger. Will you 
kindly tell us, then, who is your Ultimate Ap- 
peal? 

(The Salvationist Delegate seeming unwilling 
to reply, a good deal of irreverent remark es- 
caped the crowd. The Wesleyan Delegate, how- 
ever, came to the rescue, by saying:) "We can 
hardly expect a Salvationist to answer a ques- 
tion which a Eitualist is incompetent to an- 
swer." This sally, which was received with 
some merriment, brought the Eitualist Dele- 
gate to his feet, who remarked: "The question 



English Protestantism, ' 111 

as to Ultimate Appeal — for Dissenters as much 
as for Anglicans — is one which can admit of 
no answer, until such time as the whole of 
Christendom shall be reunited in one faith, 
and a General Council shall represent the Cath- 
olic Church. " To which response the Wesley an 
Delegate rejoined: ''Permit me, sir, to criti- 
cally examine that statement— that is, if our 
friend the Salvationist Delegate will kindly 
allow me to arrest his speech for a few mo- 
ments." The Salvationist Delegate having 
bowed his acquiescence, the Wesleyan Delegate 
proceeded: ''Because Christendom, to your 
thinking, is now schismatical, it follows, you 
assert, that until the schism first be healed 
there can be no authority which can determine 
what is schism! To what a dead-lock have 
you brought your Cathohcity ! There is schism, 
you say, because there is no Authority; yet 
out of this schism you will re-beget your Au- 
thority! There was once, you say. Catholic 
Authority, but it died, and the reason why it 
died was because certain wicked men rebelled 
against that Catholic Authority ! So the Cath- 
olic Authority was punished — nay, was ren- 



112 The Comedy of 

dered extinct upon the earth — by the wicked- 
ness of the rebels, who resisted it; not the 
rebels but the Authority being annihilated by 
the just anger of Divine Providence — against 
the rebels ! To what a pass has your profound 
logic brought your Ritualism, or rather has 
your profound Ritualism brought your logic ! 
Euclid himself might have envied you the 
'which is absurd' by which you have rendered 
Christian truth an impossibility. Sir, if you 
are sincere in your first principles — and I do 
not for one moment d oubt your sincerity — why 
do you not hasten to set a good example, by 
submitting at once to that only Authority in 
Christendom which claims the power to sum- 
mon a General Council for the purpose of de- 
fining articles of the faith ; and which claims 
the power to extinguish heresy within the 
Church by putting all wilful heretics outside 
it?" 

(This retort seemed to so delight the Irish 
element that constant cheering was kept up 
for a minute or two. When the cheering had 
subsided, the President remarked placidly) : 
Unless the Ritualist Delegate feels called on 



English Protestantism. 113 

to reply, we should like to listen to some prac- 
tical proposal from the Salvationist. Up to 
the present moment we have been rather neg- 
ative than positive; whereas the sole object of 
this Council should be positive. 

The Ritualist Delegate, I have only to re- 
peat, sir, in reply to the suggestion of the 
Wesleyan Delegate, as to the claim of the Eo- 
man Church to summon Councils, and as to 
my inferred duty of submitting to that Eoman 
claim, that no Council could now be CEcumeni- 
cal unless it included the Anglican and Greek 
Churches — two of the three branches of the 
Catholic Church. 

The Wesleyan Delegate (addressing the Sal- 
vationist Delegate). Have I your permission, 
sir, to reply? 

(Loud shouts of ^'Eeply, Eeply," coming 
from the Irish party in the hall, the Salvation- 
ist could not withhold his permission.) 

The Wesleyan Delegate, A few moments, 
sir, will suffice for my rejoinder. The Eitual- 
ist Delegate says there are three Branch 
Churches — the Anglican, the Greek, and the 

Eoman. Now I must first ask the reverend 

8 



114 The Comedy of 

gentleman, Does he accept the first five Gen- 
eral Councils? 

The Ritualist Delegate. Yes. ' 

The Wesleyan Delegate. Then I think I 
know how to reply to you. The First General 
Council, that of Nicsea, a.d. 325, was held un- 
der the authority of Pope Sylvester the First. 
The Second General Council, that of Con- 
stantinople, A.D. 381, was confirmed by the 
authority of Pope Damasus the First. The 
Third General Council, that of Ephesus, 
A.D. 431, was authorized by Pope Celestine the 
First. The Fourth General Council, that of 
Chalcedon, a.d. 451, was presided over by the 
delegate of Pope Leo the Great. The Fifth 
General Council, a.d. 553, that of the Second 
of Constantinople, was accounted QScumenical 
on the sole ground that the Eoman Pontiff gave 
his sanction to its doctrinal decrees. May I 
ask then, does the Ritualist Delegate grant 
the oecumenicity of these Councils, on the 
ground that the Roman Pontiffs approved 
them? 

The Ritualist Delegate. Not "on the 
ground;" though I accept the historic fact. 



English Protestantisim 115 

The Wesley an Delegate. I am speaking of 
historic facts, for the sole reason that I wish 
to demonstrate that your Eituahstic theory is 
untenable. At the time that these five Coun- 
cils were held, there were *^^ Branch Churches" 
just as there are at this day. When the First 
Council was held, there was the Branch Church 
of the Arians — a fairly big Branch Church, as 
we all know — and the Council excommunicated 
that Branch Church. When the Second Coun- 
cil was held there was the Branch Church of 
the Macedonians; and the Council excommu- 
nicated that Branch Church. When the Third 
Council was held, there was the Branch Church 
of the Nestorians ; and the Council excommu- 
nicated that Branch Church. When the Fourth 
Council was held, there was the Branch Church 
of the Eutychians; and the Council excommu- 
nicated that Branch Church. When the Fifth 
Council was held, there was the Branch Church 
of the Revived Nestorians ; and the Council 
excommunicated that Branch Church. I am 
afraid, sir, that your theory of Branch 
Churches would not have found favor with the 
first five General Councils — whose supreme 



116 The Comedy of 

authority you are disposed to recognize as be- 
ing Divine. 

(The Ritualist Delegate, seeming to be 
wearied with the controversy, merely re- 
marked: '^Ingenious, but unreal." And the 
President, catching the eye of the Salvationist 
Delegate, notified to him that he should con- 
tinue his address.) 

The Salvationist Delegate.' De la Rochefou- 
cauld has observed that ''in the misfortunes of 
even our best of friends there is a something 
which does not displease us;" and I own to 
having enjoyed the retort of the Wesley an 
Delegate, though its satire was a little severe 
on the Branch Theorists. For myself, I will 
only add that, as to the question of Final Ap- 
peal — on which bott my Ritualist friend and 
myself have been catechised — that question 
has been in abeyance in this country since 
the time of the Elizabethan Reformation ; and 
I do not feel ashamed of being unable to reply, 
logically, to a question which was first revived 
by the Tractarians. My own position as a Sal- 
vationist is at least not more illogical than is 
that of the new Ritualists in the Church of 



English Protestantisin. 117 

England. I own I do not see why a Salvation- 
ist should be made to blush for taking General 
Booth as his Supreme Arbiter, since no Eitu- 
alist thinks of blushing for taking himself ^^ his 
Supreme Arbiter over Eome, Moscow, Canter- 
bury, and all the sects. (Cheers and laughter.) 
(The Salvationist Delegate having resumed 
his seat, the Delegate for the Home-Made Sects 
and the Delegate for the Imported Sects rose 
together; and this gave rise to frivolous com- 
ments among the audience, which it would be 
unfitting to transfer to this Eeport. The Pres- 
ident, however, made a sign to the Home-Made 
Delegate, who plunged with a gay readiness 
into his advocacy, like a man who had some- 
thing to say and meant to say it.) 

The Delegate for the Home-Made Sects. 
There are bonds of sympathy between Angli- 
cans and Non-Conformists which should unite 
them in the closest possible fellowship. To 
begin with, they both came into existence un- 
der Queen Elizabeth, and both were made the 
slaves of her caprice. Both were cruelly 
wronged by that monarch; Anglicans, in be- 



118 The Comedij of 

ing created by her vanity ; and Non-Conform- 
ists in being crushed by her tyranny. Now let 
me dwell for a few moments on the wrongs of 
Non-Conformists, on Queen Elizabeth's fiendish 
treatment of them for thirty years; and let 
me do this, not in a temper of un forgiveness, 
but because I want to show you why the very 
idea of a State Church must be abhorrent to 
the English Dissenting sensibility. 

Carry your minds back to the sixteenth cen- 
tury, when the Congregationalists first gave 
martyrs to their faith. It was about the year 
1580 when Mr. Eobert Brown — who founded 
the devout sect of the Brownists — fought and 
suffered for the freedom of the Christian soul. 
In his day, the day of '^Good Qiieen Bess" — 
though where her ''goodness" was made ap- 
parent I have not discovered — every Non-Con- 
formist was fined twenty pounds for refusing 
to attend the Church of England service ; and 
was ordered to find sureties to the value of two 
hundred pounds, until such time as he should 
conform to the Established Church. If he 
persisted in attending a service in any conven- 
ticle, he was imprisoned until he should give 



English Protestantism. 119 

signs of repentance. If he remained obstinate 
he was banished, the kingdom; and if he re- 
turned, he was hanged. Among the hosts of 
the sect of the Brownists who were so perse- 
cuted, one Eoger Eippon expired a prisoner in 
Newgate ; and on his coffin was placed this bit- 
ter inscription: ''This is the corpse of Roger 
Eippon, a servant of Christ, and Her Majesty's 
faithful subject, who is the last of sixteen or 
seventeen v/hom that great enemy of God the 
Archbishop of Canterbury, with his High Com- 
mission, have murdered in Newgate within 
fi-ve years. " I need not recall to you the names 
of Barrowe, Greenwood, and Penry, who were 
butchered for presuming to reject the Queen's 
religion ; or for refusing to show respect to her 
Apostolical Succession — which she afterward 
admitted to be no Succession at all. Nor was 
there a prison in London — Newgate, Bridewell, 
the Fleet, the Marshalsea, the Counter, the 
Clink, the Gatehouse, the White Lion — which 
was not crowded with Enghsh Dissenters of 
good repute ; many years being allowed to pass 
before these sufferers were emancipated, and 
three of them, under the 23d Statute of Queen 



120 The Comedy of 

Elizabeth, being dragged to Tyburn to be 
banged, drawn, and quartered, as a homage 
to the self -created divinity of the ''good" 
Queen. These were the days, gentlemen, of 
"the birth of liberty of conscience!" These 
were the days when "civil- and religious free- 
dom" took the place of the dogmatic ruling of 
the Church of Rome ! Truly the Court of High 
Commission surpassed in its malignity and its 
atrocity all that we hear fabled of the worst 
horrors of the Inquisition ; for the Inquisition 
dealt only with sacrilege and apostasy, or with 
crimes which cloaked rebellion against govern- 
ments ; whereas the Court of High Commission 
punished Dissent as if it were parricide, and 
this too with the consent of ecclesiastics. 

Now why do I recall these terrors to your 
attention? Because I want to show you that 
Non-Conformists, like Anglicans, have ever 
been the victims of royal tj^ranny, the differ- 
ence being, as I have said, that Anglicanism was 
created, while Non-Con formism was crushed, 
by royal spitefulness, vanity, and immorality. 
Just as Henry VIII. compelled his subjects to 
abjure the supremacy of the Pope, yet com- 



English Protestantism. 121 

pelled them to remain faithful to all Roman 
doctrines, so did Queen EHzabeth compel her 
subjects to acknowledge the Divinity of her 
own Pontificate, while compelling them to 
accept an Episcopate of her own creation; 
equally persecuting those Anglicans who 
inclined toward the Old Eeligion, and those 
Dissenters who ventured to recoil from the 
New. It is needless to follow the sad story 
through Stuart times; to speak of Edward 
Wightman, the Baptist, who was burned for 
his heresy by King James the First; just as 
tw^o Baptists had been burned at Smithfield by 
Queen Elizabeth for declining the honor of be- 
longing to her State Church. You remember 
that even the Act of Toleration, a.d. 1689, only 
permitted Dissenters to enjoy their civil rights 
on the condition that they swore to believe in 
the Thirty-nine Articles; nor was this Act re- 
pealed until 17T9 ; and you are aware that it is 
only quite recently that all Test Acts and Uni- 
formity Acts have been swept away from the 
anti-Christian English Statute Book. I say 
to you, tlien, my Anghcan friends, that there 
should be this bond of sympathy between us— 



122 The Comedy of 

between all Establishmentarians and all Dis- 
senters — that Anglicans suffered the wrong 
and the humiliation of having a Church made 
for them by Henry's daughter, with the aid of 
a revolutionary and abandoned clique; while 
Dissenters suffered the wrong and the humilia- 
tion of being tortured by that same unscrupu- 
lous woman, because they would not accept 
her extemporized substitute for Christianity. 
(Murmurs and applause.) 

And here I cannot help observing — to refer 
for a moment to modern times — that it is to 
the Anglican House of Lords that all Dissent- 
ers are indebted for the most bigoted and most 
malignant persecution. It was the Lords who 
maintained the Test and Corporation Acts; 
who refused, in 1834, to repeal an Act which 
forbade twenty Dissenters to worship together 
without a license from a Bishop of the Church 
of England; who, in 1839, refused an Edu- 
cation Grant because Dissenters would be 
gainers by the bounty ; who five times re- 
jected Bills for abolishing the Church Rate; 
who three times rejected Bills which gave 
Dissenters the consolation of the presence of 



English Protestantism. 123 

their own ministers at their friends' graves; 
and who four times rejected Bills for the aboli- 
tion of those tests which deprived Dissenters 
of all prizes at the Universities. Well might 
Mr. Chamberlain sajj at Denbigh, in his 
^^ Plain Words to Peers" (1884), '^The cup of 
the House of Lords is nearly full." 

The President, I fully recognize your per- 
sonal right to express these sentiments, but I 
would rather that you gave your reasons for 
either resisting or acceding to the proposal for 
the Eeunion of the Churches. 

The Delegate for the Home-Macle Sects. I re- 
gret that I have to affirm that it would be im- 
possible that Non- Conformists should make 
their submission to the State Church, and for 
reasons which I will now briefly state. The 
'^ bonds of sympathy"! have referred to should 
lead us to live in harmony, to abjure every ex- 
pression of hostility, and to strive our mutual 
utmost to emancipate all Christians from the 
tyranny of Kings, Parliaments, or State Clergy. 
But as to Eeunion — ah, that is another question, 
and I will now give the reasons why it cannot 
be. The first reason is that there are at least 



124 The Comedy of 

three big Churches within the Church which 
is best known as the Establishment; besides 
several scores of very little Churches. (Laugh- 
ter.) 

Suppose that all Dissenters were to submit 
to-morrow to the Establishment, each one of 
them would have to be asked this pertinent 
question: ''To which Church of the Establish- 
ment are you submitting — to the Eitualist, the 
Broad Church, or the Evangelical?" (Renewed 
laughter.) I ow^n I do not see how any Dis- 
senter in all the world, however elastic or com- 
prehensive his capacity, could be able to become 
all three at once. (A voice, ''He might alter- 
nate them, week by week.") In Japan there 
is a temple called "The Temple of the Ten 
Thousand Idols;" and a devotee may well pay 
his respects to the whole number, because the 
divinities are only powers, they are not teach- 
ers ; nor is it said that each of the gods has a 
different religion; so that the respect which 
the devotee paj^s to the ten thousand divinities 
need not necessarily imply a belief in ten thou- 
sand creeds. But in the Church of England if 
there were a temple of all the idols of Private 



English Protestantism. 125 

Judgment in the sense of the homage which 
each man pays to his own opinion, the innu- 
merable idols would require a ''Catalogue" 
even more lengthy and voluminous than that 
of the Library of our National Museum in 
great Russell Street. (Some amusement.) 

But now I will suppose, first, that a Dissent- 
er submits to the Ritualist party — or rather 
that he does not submit, for to submit would 
be an impossible absurdity, but that he is in- 
vited by the Ritualist party to become a Ritu- 
alist. He would find it painful to be obliged 
to reply as follows : 

''You, the Ritualists, say that you are the 
Primitive Catholic Church, and that you have 
only gone back to a thousand years before Lu- 
ther. You ignore all the reformers, with Queen 
Elizabeth, and also the whole of the last three 
centuries of English Protestantism; and, leap- 
ing over the mighty chasm of fifteen centuries, 
you assure us that you are the resuscitated 
Early Church. Well, in this case you have to 
confess that, for the last three centuries, your 
Church has been no Church ^ at all. It has 
blasphemed doctrines which you now affirm to 



126 The Comedy of 

be primitive; omitted sacraments which you 
now declare to be essential; and practised a 
ritual which you now say is anti-Catholic; 
and so you have to confess yourselves the off- 
spring of apostates, who have disgraced this 
country and your Catholic religion for three 
centuries. A word more, and I will leave you 
to your conscience. You have demonstrated, 
by your utter failure to be truly Catholic — sub- 
stituting your self-will for obedience, your 
fancy doctrines for submission to your Bishop — 
that you are a pretence, not the real Catholic 
Church ; indeed you have brought Church au- 
thority into contempt, by centring it in your 
individual caprice. You are not 'The Church,' 
but a sect, just like we are ; you are Dissenters 
from your own communion, from your own 
ancestry ; your new Eitualism being as much 
a matter of self-creation as is our Independent- 
ism, Quakerism, or Baptistism." 

So much for the Ritualist invitation. But 
now the Broad Churchman will take up the 
cudgels — or rather the sweet olive-branch of 
Reunion — and will beg the Dissenter to join 
his party. The Dissenter, I should imagine. 



English Protestantism, 127 

would reply as follows: '^ A Broad Churchman 
is no Churchman at all. He is very often not 
even a Christian. The severest attacks on 
the Christian citadel have come from Broad 
Churchmen ; Canons and Deans, reverend Pro- 
fessors and College Dons, have sown the seeds 
of infidelity by their speculations ; while Bamp- 
ton lecturers, Doctors of Divinity, and popular 
preachers have dealt more tenderly with Ag- 
nosticism or Free-thinking than they have with 
Christian doctrines or divine faith. Only a few 
days ago the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol 
presented a petition to Convocation, in which 
it was pleaded : 'It is generally known that cer- 
tain clergymen of the Church of England, in 
positions of influence and authority, are delib- 
erately undermining, by their teachings and 
public writings, the faith of the Church in 
this country in the trustworthiness of the 
Holy Scriptures, and are also repudiating the 
common faith of Christendom.' The truth 
is that what is called Modern Thought has 
found its best allies in Broad Churchmen; 
whereas the Divinity of Christ has been insisted 
upon by all Dissenters (Great cheering from all 



128 The Comedy of 

the parties in the hall) save of course by the 
Socinians or Unitarians. A Broad Churchman 
is such a nondescript professor ! He is a man 
who will affect scientism — or what he considers 
to be scientism — with a calm and a speculative 
estimate of things in general, together with 
an amiable impression that Christianity is a 
good religion, provided you care more for its 
morals than for its doctrines. He is, perhaps, 
a Freethinker first, and a Christian afterward, 
though education and the national sentiment 
preserve his ^ faith.' Forty years ago he was 
an easy -thinking Christian who objected only 
to Eoman Catholicism and to unbelief ; to-day 
he will include both extremes in his forgiveness 
provided there be no aggressiveness, no earnest- 
ness. I do not know a more dangerous man 
than your Broad Churchman. He will dabble 
in Biblical criticism, with its ally, ^scientific 
infidelity ' — a conjunction of words which sug- 
gests ^rational imbecility' or intelligent idi- 
ocy, ' or any other odd compound of contradic- 
tories — nor will he refuse his fellowship to any 
theorist, provided he has only opinions, no 
convictions, and looks on credo and nego as the 



English Protestantism. 129 

same thing. No, my impression is that a Dis- 
senter would rather be anything than a Broad 
Churchman. I beheve he would rather be a 
Eituahst . ' ' (Lau ghter . ) 

But will not the Evangelical party be more 
successful? Unquestionably we would all join 
the Evangelical party to-morrow, if they would 
renounce their pagan slavery to the British 
Parliament. (Partial cheering.) Evangelicals 
are only accidentally Anglican, they are essen- 
tially Non-Conformist in their sentiments. 
They care no more for state theology than did 
John Wesley. — And here I may be permitted 
to make a digression, in regard to that great 
reformer, John Wesley. I could not help 
thinking, when the Wesleyan Delegate was ad- 
dressing you, how immeasurable was the ser- 
vice which John Wesley rendered to the Estab- 
lishment ; more even when he left it than w hen 
he belonged to it. He killed Erastianism, as 
much as Newman killed Puritanism. John 
Wesley made dry bones to live ; and you^ sir, 
(here the speaker turned to the Eitualist Dele- 
gate) would never have found a party in the 
Church of England sufficiently earnest to in- 



130 The Comedy of 

quire anxiously about Christian doctrines^ had 
not John Wesley first revived the Christian 
sentiment; without which doctrines are only as 
ribs over a still heart. It was Wesley who 

The Ritualist Delegate. With every respect 
for the personal character of John Wesley, 
there can be no question that he was guilty of 
the sin of schism. 

The Delegate for the Home-Made Sects. The 
sin of schism ! How can an Anglican talk of 
the sin of schism? Or how could John Wesley 
be a schismatist from a Communion whose very 
origin and reason of being was Koyal Schism? 
Sir, every Dissenter feels that the Church of 
England can have no right to charge with the 
sin of schism any person or number of persons 
who desert it. I think I can make this plain 
to you in two minutes. A few days ago I was 
conversing with a Roman Catholic ; and I read 
to him a passage from a Church newspaper, in 
which Roman Catholics were charged with the 
sin of schism. My Catholic friend laughed 
merrily ; and I believe I can verbally remember 
his answer. That answer is as good for all 
Dissenters as it is for the Catholic body in this 



English Protestantism. 131 

country. ''If the Church of Ehzabeth," said 
my CathoHc friend, ''in the sixteenth century, 
had the moral right and the ecclesiastical power, 
first, to repudiate the supremacy of the Holy 
See ; next, to repudiate all Church communion 
with Eoman Catholics ; next, to persecute with 
the rack and with the gibbet those who re- 
mained faithful to the Old Eeligion, as well 
as those who invented new religions for them- 
selves ; next, to obliterate five sacraments out 
of seven, and then to reduce the 'two only' 
to 'open questions;' next, to do away with 
the sacrifice of the Mass, and to substitute a 
form of prayer read to the people — going so 
far even as to place the consecrated altar-stones 
at the church door, that they might be trodden 
upon in uttermost contempt for their significa- 
tion ; next, to have monthly, or three-monthly, 
'celebrations of the Lord's Supper,' in place 
of the daily consuming of the Adorable Host 
at a thousand altars; next, to do away with 
the monastic and conventual life, while utterly 
repudiating the virginity of ecclesiastics ; next, 
to substitute a private interpretation of the 
Scriptures for the authoritative and dogmatic 



132 The Comedy of 

ruling of Church authority; next, to get rid 
of all ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and to make 
Prime Ministers the sources of spiritual power 
— ex plenitiicUne ApostoliccB potestatis — if the 
Church Establishment could do all these things, 
and a great many more, without incurring the 
deadly sin of schism, then what can be more 
ridiculous than to charge Catholics with schism 
for adhering firmly to the very letter of the 
Old Faith ; or to charge Dissenters with schism 
for preferring the ideas of good men to those 
of a murderous king or a fickle woman?" I 
own that I felt the reasonableness of that ar- 
gument. To talk of schism from the biggest 
of all Schisms, or of separation from the big- 
gest of all Separatists, did appear to me fan- 
tastic and childish. And I imagine, gentle- 
men, that you, most of you, think so too. (A 
good deal of smiling and obvious amusement 
followed this question, but no one thought it 
worth while to (Object.) The Church of Eng- 
land, full of faults as it has been, has at least 
rendered this boon to all Anglicans: that it 
has made the commission of the sin of schism 
an impossibility — that is, consistently with its 



English Protestantism. 133 

own principles. As to heresy, well, that has 
gone in the same way. Unless a man should 
persist in disobeying himself, I do not see how 
he can possibly be a heretic — that is, according 
to the philosophy of the Church of England ; 
which, as my friend the Wesleyan Delegate 
has remarked, is not the philosophy of a 
''Church," but the jumble of contradictions in 
an ''Institution." 

I have been asked if I will submit to that 
"Institution;" to what Lord Houghton called 
"that branch of the Civil Service called the 
Church of England. " And my reply is, I must 
respectfully say, no. First, gentlemen, get 
rid of your "Civil Service;" then get rid of 
your Ritualism and your Broad Churchism; 
and with the Evangelical party I shall be most 
happy to ally myself, reverencing them frater- 
nally and sympathetically. 

(The audience had scarcely time to express 
their sentiments when the Eitualist Delegate 
claimed their attention, as though in response 
to the speech he had just heard.) 

The Ritualist Delegate. I waive all consid- 



134 The Comedy of 

eration of the question of schism, on which it 
is unhkely that we should agree ; but I main- 
tain that it is to the EituaHsts, and to the Rit- 
uahsts alone, that the Church of England is 
indebted for its vitality. (Cheers.) I have 
had to put up with a good deal of incrimina- 
tion, and I think I may say a plain word for 
myself. (''Hear, hear.") 

At the beginning of this century, so general 
was the lassitude which pervaded both the 
clergy and the laity, that the Church of Eng- 
land could only be described as being fast 
asleep, wrapped in the profoundest slumber of 
oblivion. I cannot conceive of anything less 
suggestive of Christianity than a Church of 
England parish church — even fifty years ago. 
I well remember it. Indeed my father was an 
old-fashioned country parson. Three boxes in 
every church, piled one above another, obscured 
even so much as a glimpse of the altar. The 
clergy drawled ; the clerk moaned ; the people 
slept ; and the whole thing was such a dreary, 
dismal bore that any conventicle in the king- 
dom would have been preferable. ''A funeral 
service over a defunct religion" was the sug- 



English Protestantism. 135 

gestion to any foreigner, to any Catholic. Let 
me quote to you Dean Gregory, the present 
Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, on the dead-and- 
alive state of the Church in 1820. The Dean 
says: '^Pluralites among the clergy were al- 
most universal. . . . Benefices were looked 
upon as estates. ... So late as 1820 a Bishop- 
ric and a Deanery of St. Paul's were held to- 
gether ; the rich pluralist giving his sons can- 
onries and several livings in different parts of 
the country. . . . The sick and the dying were 
uncared for ; the poor were unvisited ; the chil- 
dren were untaught ; the most solemn services 
of the Church were so negligently performed 
as to be productive of evil rather than good." 
And again, says Dean Gregory: '^In some 
country churches the Squire's seat was fitted 
up as a parlor with a table and chairs and a 
fireplace, and with curtains to hide the occu- 
pants from the view of the rest of the congre- 
gation. Nor were the services more attractive. 
There was no chanting, hymns were unknown. 
The week-day services in cathedrals were com- 
pulsorily maintained, but the choirs and clergy 
attended so irregularly and behaved so irrever- 



136 The Comedy of 

ently as effectually to keep worshippers away. 
There were few churches in which Holy Com- 
munion was celebrated more frequently than 
once a month," 

Such was the state of things up to the time 
of the Oxford Movement. And why is it that 
the Church of England is now alive, instead 
of being dead, to all practical intents and pur- 
poses? I maintain that it is solely because 
the doctrines of the High Church party have 
vivified the moribund life of the whole nation ; 
and that whereas Broad Churchmen have gone 
to sleep, and Evangelicals have talked senti- 
ment, the High Church party alone have borne 
the burden and heat of the day ; and, spite of 
prejudice, of abuse, of ignorant obstruction, 
have brought back the Church of England to 
its first love ; to Catholic vigor, Catholic belief. 
Catholic intensity ; to the living for the next 
world rather than for this. (Immense cheer- 
ing.) I consider it to be ungrateful to the 
High Church party to ignore their valuable 
services to religion, as well as to society and 
to the whole country; and I fling back the 
sneers of all Low Churchmen, be they Angli- 



English Protestantism, 137 

cans, Dissenters, or Nothingarians, as unwor- 
thy of men who have not worked as we have, 
have not reaped the fruit of their perseverance. 
(Renewed cheering; which was apparently 
taken up by all parties; the Dissenters as 
much as the Anglicans fully recognizing the 
sincerity as well as the manifest truth of this 
pleading.) 

The Broad Church Delegate, I am disposed 
to indorse what the Ritualist Delegate has just 
said, though it be to the disparagement of my 
own party. (Cheers and laughter. ) And now 
I have to break a lance on my own account 
with the doubtless conscientious Delegate from 
the Home-Made Sects. That gentleman has 
talked sarcastically of the '^big divisions" in 
the EstabHshment, just as though there were 
no divisions among Dissenters! Come, sir, 
you know a good deal better than that. (Laugh- 
ter.) Why, I remember, at the last Congress 
at Rhyl, the Rector of Llandudno, a Welsh 
clergyman of experience, asserted: '^ do not 
believe that the leading Non-Conformist bodies 
are drawing nearer to one another, except so 



138 The Comedy of 

far as closer association is helpful to sentiments 
which would be hostile to the Church." And 
I remember too that the Eev. D. Williams, a 
High Churchman, thus expressed himself in 
regard to Non-Conformity: ''Its myriad incon- 
sistencies, its insane hatreds, its audacious 
claims, and its persistent charge of alienhood 
against the Church, are reducible to this one 
struggle: to be state-recognized and state-es- 
tablished, to be more in union with the state, 
to get the upper hand here and the upper hand 
there, and the upper hand everywhere; state- 
paid schools, state-paid colleges — soon it will be 
state-paid chapels. This is the neck or noth- 
ing of Dissent." I also recall a speech of a 
Baptist minister, made at a public conference 
last year, in which he said: ''The various sec- 
tions of Non-Conformists act toward each other 
like dogs fighting over a bone," a confession 
upon which the Anglican Church Times made 
this comment: "The unanimity of the sects is 
a sham ; it is a thin veneer of friendship fas- 
tened to a solid block of envy." Well, all this 
does not look much like Reunion ; nor does it 
justify my esteemed friend, the Delegate for 



English Protestantism. 139 

the Home-Made Sects, in throwing stones at 
the glass house of Broad Churchism. (Upon 
which the Broad Church Delegate abruptly sat 
down, and the audience gave him mixed cheers 
and hisses.) 

The Delegate for the Imported Sects (being 
now called upon by the President, moved for- 
ward to the front of the platform, and, putting 
his hands behind him, said slowly and with 
grief). To what purpose has all this contro- 
versy tended? I am weary of it. I had hoped 
that some ground would have been taken, on 
which we could have all made a firm stand ; 
and though I shall be the first, I hope I shall 
not be the last, to state what is that ground, 
and to abide bv it. 

I feel ashamed that we should meet here to- 
day with any other object in view than that of 
resistance to the apostate Church of Eome. 
(Cries of ^'Oh, oh," and derisive laughter.) 
When I think of those mighty giants of the 
Christian Church, Luther, Calvin, Beza, Me- 
lancthon ; with the saintly Fathers of Augsburg 
and Geaeva, of whom I may say that they were 



140 The Comedy of 

the first apostles of those sects which you are 
pleased, perhaps derisively, to call ''Im- 
ported," — I blush for the timid, time-serving 
tone of argument which has thus far distin- 
guished this Council. Recall the ardent con- 
troversies between Luther, Carlstadt, and the 
Popish Eck; and then think with humility on 
the milk-and-water conversation which has 
passed to-day for a protest against Eome. 
(Great laughter. ) The saintly Fathers of Prot- 
estantism might be disunited in their opinions 
in regard to this or that dogma of man's in- 
sistence ; but they were all unanimous in their 
opposition to Eome — that mother and mistress 
of abominations. (Great uproar, the Irish 
party shouting lustily and giving utterance to 
contemptuous observations.) I am not to be 
disturbed by Popish recusants, and shall calmly 
pursue the tenor of my argument. 

The President, I think, sir, you should 
moderate your reprehension. Our object is 

the Reunion of all the Churches. Mere acri- 
mony or vituperation, on your part, will hardly 
contribute to that beneficent result. 

The Delegate for the Imported Sects. I agree 



English Protestantism. i4i 

with you, sir, that our object is.Reunion— but 
Reunion in ivhat? Is it to be Reunion in back- 
sH(Jing, in a cowardly indifference to first 
principles; or is it to be Reunion under one 
common Christian standard: that of opposing 
what is Popish and false, and of defending 
what is Scriptural and sound? Sir, I maintain 
that there are only two standards in polemics: 
warfare the one, the standard of "Christ, 
All in All;" the other, the standard of "Rome, 
All in All." (A voice: "There is a third 
standard: Yourself, All in All.") I fight 
under the standard of "Christ, All in All." I 
will never be a party to human religions. (A 
voice: "Unless it be the religion of Number 
One.") I fight under the banner of the great 
Reformers, who proclaimed the Gospel truth 
that to make war on the Man of Sin was to 
make war on behalf of the Redeemer. (A 
voice: "Who is your friend, the Man of Sin?" 
And the Delegate, turning sharply on his in- 
terlocutor, answered :) The Man of Sin is the 
Roman Catholic Pope, who seats himself in the 
temple of God. showing himself to be God. 
(Here an Irishman rose in the centre of the 



142 The Comedy of 

hall and said very quietly, and as though com- 
passionating the Delegate: ''Mr. President, is 
it permitted in this Council, that a gentlenian, 
who is evidently far from well, should occupy 
our time with childish chatter about the Pope, 
or with fatuous abuse of the Catholic faith?" 
Before, however, the President could reply, the 
Delegate retorted with some vehemence:) I 
insist upon my right to proclaim the truth ; to 
discharge my solemn duty of warning this 
grave Council against the insidious plots of 
Jesuits and Eitualists. I have memorialized 
Her Majesty, our stanch Protestant Queen, 
and have implored her to issue a Eoyal Com- 
mission of Inquiry into Eomanist and Ritual- 
ist tricks and conspiracies. Her Majesty is 
Defender of the Faith. (A voice, '' Which 
faith?") Defender of the Protestant faith. 
(A voice, '' Which Protestant faith?") De- 
fender of the Augsburg Protestant faith, for 
which Martin Luther fought. (A voice, " In 
order that he might make a nun break her 
vows, and then marry her.") 

The President, All this is beside the ques- 
tion. It is not only irrelevant, it is unseemly. 



English Protestantism. 143 

If the Delegate for the Imported Sects desire 
to insist on the truism that Her Majesty is 
Defender of the Faith, I shall not for a mo- 
ment think of disturbing him ; but he must do 
this without personal reflections, and he must 
limit himself to the question, ''Can her Maj- 
esty, as Defender of the Faith, help to bring 
about the Eeunion of the Churches?" 

The Delegate for the Imported Sects, Un- 
questionably, sir, her Majesty, who is Defender 
of the Faith, can help to bring about the Re- 
union of the Churches. 

The Irishman (who had previously ad- 
dressed the President). Will the gentleman 
kindly define for us, so as to assist us in un- 
derstanding his position, in what sense he 
speaks of her Majesty as being ''Defender of 
the Faith" — using the definite, not the indefi- 
nite article? 

The Delegate. Her Majesty is Defender of 
the Protestant Faith. 

The Irishman. Then, sir, it would be con- 
venient if you would kindly tell us whether 
you use the words "the Protestant Faith" in 
the sense of positive truth to be confessed, or 



144 The Comedy of 

in the sense of negative error to be con- 
demned. 

The Delegate. I use the words in the sense 
of Protest against Rome. 

The Irishman. Precisely! Then allow me 
to tell you, sir, that her Majesty has no right 
to the title, '^ Defender of Protest against 
Rome;" since the title ''Fidei Defensor" was 
conferred on King Henry VIII. by Pope Leo 
X., in recognition of his Defence of the Seven 
Sacraments, and of the Divine Authority and 
infallible teaching of the Holy See. If there- 
fore the ''F. D." on the coins of this realm 
mean anything that is historic or ingenuous, it 
means that her Majesty is Defender of Papal 
Supremacy, and that she protests against Mar- 
tin Luther and all his falsehoods. 

The Delegate. You might as well say that 
because the Archbishop of Canterbury charges 
his heraldic shield with the Roman Pallium — 
the symbol of Rome-conferred jurisdiction; 
or because the Archbishop of York charges his 
shield with St. Peter's keys — the symbol of 
Rome-bestowed absolution— therefore the two 
archbishops profess to derive all their authority 



English Protestantism, 145 

through the assumed successors of the assumed 
head of your Church. 

The Irishman, No, sir, I regret to have to 
say something more severe. What the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury professes, by displaying 
the PalHum on his coat of arms, is that all 
spiritual jurisdiction is derived from the Pope, 
but that he, unfortunately, does not possess it. 
And what the Archbishop of York professes, 
by displaying St. Peter's keys on his coat of 
arms, is that the keys of the Kingdom of 
Heaven were committed to St. Peter, and 
through him to his successors in all time, but 
that, unfortunately, having nothing to do with 
the successors of St. Peter, he has no partici- 
pation in that royal power. 

The Delegate. Well, sir, you can put what 
construction you please upon historic accidents. 
Every Protestant knows that ^'F. D." on the 
coins of the realm means ^'Defender of the 
Faith of the Eeformers." Every Protestant 
knows that the power of the keys means the 
duty of proclaiming pardon to all penitents, 
and retribution to all reprobates and unbeliev- 
ers. And every Protestant knows that the Pal- 
10 



146 The Comedy of 

Hum, now adopted by Dr. Benson, means that 
the spiritual jurisdiction of all true ministers 
of the Gospel is derived from the One Shep- 
herd who is in Heaven. 

The Irishman. I am thankful to you, sir, 
for giving us so clear an apprehension of hither- 
to misunderstood words and symbols. (Laugh- 
ter.) Perhaps, however, I may now venture 
to ask you: If "F. D." meant Defender of the 
Catholic Faith in the time of His Majesty 
King Henry VIII. ; and if the keys of St. 
Peter meant the power of the Popes through 
all the centuries that preceded the Reforma- 
tion ; and if the Pallium was the symbol of the 
spiritual plenitude of the Papal Office, from 
certainly the time of Pope Symmachus in the 
fifth century to the time of Pope Leo XIII. in 
the nineteenth century — the present Pope hav- 
ing just conferred the Pallium on the Arch- 
bishop of Westminster by the same authority 
by which his predecessor, St. Gregory the 
Great, conferred it on St. Augustine of Can- 
terbury — then how do you prove that your 
Protestant friends in Geneva received a Divine 
Commission from the Son of God to pronounce 



English Protestantism. 147 

the whole Catholic Church to be in error, or 
that they were endowed with such supernatu- 
ral illumination as enabled them to declare 
themselves to be infallible? 

The Delegate, I do not want to prove any- 
thing of the kind. The whole Catholic Church 
had become so corrupt during the middle ages, 
that it needed no infallibility — it needed only 
a thoroughly Scriptural mind — to convict it 
of superstition and idolatry. The religion of 
England in the earliest centuries was Protes- 
tant. Your Church caused it to apostatize 
from that Scriptural Faith. 

The Irishman, You assert, sir, that 'Hhe 
religion of England in the earliest centuries 
was Protestant." If this were so, how came 
it to pass that the British kings, in the cen- 
turies which preceded the Norman Conquest, 
all acknowledged the Pope as their Spiritual 
Head? 

The Delegate, I deny that they did so. 

The Irishman. I affirm that they did so 
and I will prove it. To begin at the very 
earliest 

The President, There is an inconvenience 



148 The Comedy of 

about this irregular mode of controversy. I 
have no wish to put a stop to free discussion, 
but I should like the argument to be so con- 
ducted that the whole audience might hear it, 
which is hardly possible in the present position 
of the new combatant. I have, however, one 
observation to make, and it is this: The ob- 
ject of this Council was the Reunion of the 
Churches — the Reunion of the Church of Eng- 
land with the Dissenting bodies, but most cer- 
tainly not with the Church of Rome. (Laugh- 
ter.) Now the Irish gentleman has introduced 
a new element, which is outside the purpose 
of this Council. True, all the delegates have 
spoken; nor is there any immediate prospect 
of new proposals ; still, it is for the audience 
to say whether the remainder of the afternoon 
shall be given up to the Roman Catholic gen- 
tleman. Will you kindly express your wishes 
on the subject? (A large majority decided by 
vociferous acclamation in favor of listening to 
the Irishman.) Then, as the audience wish to 
hear the new combatant, it may be better that 
he should come up here on to the platform, and 
take his place as the Irish Catholic Delegate. 



English Protestantism. 149 

(Shouts of applause followed this ruling, 
with familiar cries and warm expressions of 
encouragement. The Irish gentleman, who 
had now received his invitation, moved away 
from his place in the auditorium, and in a few 
moments appeared upon the platform. First 
bowing to the President and the delegates, he 
addressed himself apologetically to those gen- 
tlemen.) 

The Irishman, It was not my ambition, gen- 
tlemen, to intrude myself into this high com- 
pany. I had thought to content myself with 
correcting false statements. But now that I 
am here, have I your permission to answer the 
statement that 'Hhe early kings of this coun- 
try were all Protestants;" and to give my 
proofs that these kings were not only not 
Protestants, but, one and all, most enthusiastic 
Roman Catholics? 

The President, Certainly. 

The Irishman. Well, first, gentlemen, I 
think I may lay it down as a postulate that 
the religion of the king of any country is the 
religion of the people of that country. A for- 



150 The Comedy of 

tiori, if, generation after generation, and cen- 
tury after century, all the kings of a country 
professed the same belief, and all practised 
the same devotional customs — and this too in 
the observation of the whole nation — it would 
follow necessarily that the faith and devotion 
of the kings were the faith and devotion of 
the whole people. May I claim your assent to 
that proposition? 

(Tokens of general approval.) 

Then I must ask you : What interpretation 

I 

can you put upon the fact that all the Saxon 
kings went to Eome in holy pilgrimage, or 
else sent their representatives when they could 
not go? It was no easy matter, in those prim- 
itive times, for the Kings Coeadwalla, Ina, 
Offa, Caenred, Offa, Siric, Burhed, Eardulf, 
Ethelwulf, and Canute the Dane, or for the 
Queens Frythogith and Ethelburga, to cross 
the Alps to pay homage to the Holy Father, 
and we may be quite sure that they would not 
have done so had not their faith and their 
obedience braced them to so energetic a pilgrim- 
age. Venerable Bede tells us that this Roman 
pilgrimage, exampled by kings and habitually 



English Protestantism, 151 

practised by their subjects, was accomplished 
by crowds noble and ignoble; and this too 
spontaneously and with great fervor ; and he 
mentions that the Kings Egbert and Oswy 
'^sent presents to the Apostolic Pope, and 
many presents of gold and silver." So too 
King Kenwulf of Mercia dispatched to Eome an 
annual sum of 365 mancuses, '^to support the 
poor and to supply oil for the numerous lamps 
in St. Peter's." Ethelwulf, King of Wessex, 
lavished gifts on the Pontiff, and sent four 
dishes of silver gilt for Pope Benedict III. ; and 
in his last will he ordered a continuance of his 
gifts, ''in honor of St. Peter, especially to buy 
oil for the lights of the Church." The Anglo- 
Saxon Chronicle records that the alms of King 
Alfred were carried four times to Eome with 
much ceremony; and William of Malmesbury 
v/rites that King Ethel wulf ''went to Eome 
and there offered to St. Peter that tribute 
which England pays to this day," alluding to 
what we now call Peter's Pence. King Canute 
the Dane was inexorable as to this Eoman 
money, enjoining his subjects to pay "the 
Peter's Pence according to the cmcienHaw;" 



152 The Comedy of 

the legislation of the last of the Saxon kings 
mentioning ''half a markkas the tax to be 
imposed by "Danish law," payment to be re- 
ceived between the Feast of St. Peter and St. 
Paul and the Festival known as Ad Vincula. 
I will not weary you with such countless repe- 
titions as the letters of Saxon kings to the 
Pontiffs ; as, for example, when Kenwulf , King 
of Mercia, wrote to the Pope that he ''deemed 
it fitting to incline the ear of his obedience 
with all due humility to the Pontiff's holy 
commands;" or when — in still earlier days, in 
the second century — Pope Eleutherius received 
a letter from Lucius, King of the Britons — so 
styled — asking him that he "might be made a 
Christian by his orders;" a fact authenticated 
by Venerable Bede, by the Anglo-Saxon Chron- 
icle, by William of Malmesbury, by St. Ado's 
Martyrology, and by the Book of Landaff . It 
is more to the purpose that the Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicle tells us that King Alfwold went to 
Rome for a Pall, and invested Eanbald as arch- 
bishop ; or that King Coeadwalla went to Rome 
to be baptized ; or that Ina, King of Wessex, re- 
signed his crown, and went to Rome and there 



English Protestantism. 153 

entered a religious order; or that King Ethel- 
wulf sent his son Alfred to Rome, and Pope 
Leo consecrated him king, and took him for a 
son at Confirmation; or that King Eardwulf 
of Northumbria, being deposed from his sov- 
ereignty, went to Eome to plead his cause with 
the Pope, and the Pope sent his Legate back 
with the restored king. I may mention too 
incidentally that, in the Preface to Dugdale's 
''Monasticon," it is stated that within five 
hundred years thirty Anglo-Saxon kings and 
queens resigned their crowns and became 
monks and nuns. Moreover, in the Calendar 
of the old English Church we find the names 
of about three hundred canonized saints, more, 
than half of whom were of royal birth or con- 
nection — a fact significant as to the Catholic 
faith of the period, and of submission to the 
Holy See which made them '^saints." And 
now to say a word as to the last of the Saxon 
kings, the ever-to-be-honored Confessor, St. 
Edward. Not being able to go to Rome 
through some infirmity, he begged a commu- 
tation of his vow from the Holy See ; and the 
result was your historic Abbey at Westmir- 



154 The Comedy of 

ster, upon which you gaze with such artistic 
dehght. 

Now, gentlemen, that you may realize the 
full import of this devotion on the part of your 
early kings to the Sovereign Pontiff, let me 
ask you to imagine the same spirit in these 
days; the same tone, temper, and warmth of 
faith on the part of your Protestant kings or 
Protestant queens, as was shown in earliest 
times by Catholic sovereigns. Let me ask you 
to imagine George the Third, or George the 
Fourth, or William the Fourth, or Queen Vic- 
toria, crossing the Alps — even in comfortable 
royal style — subjecting their religious faith to 
the Sovereign Pontiff ; begging his counsel on 
both spiritual and temporal matters; com- 
manding that Peter's Pence should be sent to 
Eome ''according to the ancient law;" or mak- 
ing bequests in their last testaments ''in honor 
of St. Peter, especially to buy oil for the numer- 
ous lamps of the Church." You see at once 
what a fearful distance you have got away 
from the faith and practice of the earliest cen- 
turies of Christianity. The Delegate for the 
Imported Sects has hazarded the statement 



English Protestantism, 155 

that ''the first centuries of EngHsh Christian- 
ity were Protestant." I must leave him to 
settle that libel with those early sovereigns, 
of whom I have shown that their whole mind 
was Roman Catholic. I must leave him to 
settle that libel with St. Edward, the canonized 
King and Confessor, and his own countryman, 
who was the founder of that Eoman Catholic 
Abbey in Westminster which you use chiefly 
for a show place and a burial-ground. Let 
me speak to you for one moment of that Cath- 
olic Abbey. The Sovereign Pontiff gave his 
consent in early times that the new Abbey 
should be served by Benedictines, who should 
be exempt from episcopal jurisdiction; that 
future sovereigns should be crowned in that 
Abbey ; and further that the charters made in 
favor of the Abbey should be looked upon as 
sacred, as irreversible, because they had been 
Pontifically confirmed. The very words also 
of the King's Address to the Pontiff, when 
begging the confirmation of these privileges, 
showed the national as well as the royal obedi- 
ence and homage: ''To Nicholas, the exalted 
Father of the Universal Church, Edward, by 



156 The Comedy of 

the Grace of God King of England, due sub- 
jection and obedience." And now, gentlemen, 
let me say to you — though I say it not with 
envy but with sorrow: True, you have got 
possession of St. Edward's Abbey; but now 
that you have got it, what can you do with it? 
That Abbey was built for a shrine of Catholic 
Mysteries. You have converted it into a semi- 
pagan mausoleum. Look at its marvellous 
fabric — its intimation! What was the soul 
of that body? It was the adorable Presence 
on the Altar, round which were grouped the 
Mysteries of the Communion and the Invoca- 
tion of Saints, of the Virgin Mother of God, of 
the Unity of the Faith, and all the worship, 
the obedience, the love of the whole English 
nation. Alas, what have you done with the 
soul of that Abbey? Or where is now the 
jewel within the casket? When I go to that 
Abbey, to whom can I kneel? To no Sacra- 
mental Presence on the Altar ; no, nor before an 
Altar of the Blessed Virgin. The Virgin Moth- 
er is gone, with her Divine Son; and in their 
stead you have men's voices, men's opinions. 
(Tokens of approval and of warm impression.) 



English Protestantism, 157 

The President (addressing the Irishman). I 
apprehend that the gist of your controversy is 
that Reunion would not be possible with the 
Roman Church, save on condition of absolute 
submission to the Holy See ; and that neither 
as to authority nor doctrine would your Church 
make concessions, with a view to reconciliation 
and peace. 

The Irishman, In the very fact, sir, that 
you can use the word ''concessions" in refer- 
ence to authority and doctrine, you show that 
you have not grasped Catholic unity. Let me 
put this before you very simply. Unity is only 
possible under obedience. Obedience is only 
possible when the authority which is to be 
obeyed is recognized as Divine, therefore infal- 
lible. How then can a Divine authority make 
concessions upon doctrine, seeing that doctrine 
is God's truth, not man's opinion, and is there- 
fore immutable as is God? Concessions as to 
discipline, concessions as to customs, conces- 
sions as to ceremonial observances — all such 
concessions can be made by Church authority ; 
but to alter the doctrine of the Catholic religion 
would be to alter the Mind of the Most Hisfh ; 



158 The Comedij of 

it would be to stultify the teaching of the Holy 
Spirit ; it would be indeed a blasphemy against 
the Holy Ghost, such as would be inconceiva- 
ble in the " Os Dei,'' " the mouth of God," the 
voice of the ever-abiding Trinity. As to any 
amount of concession in discipline, custom, or 
ceremony, the Holy See has in all centuries 
been magnanimous. The Coptic, Maronite, 
and Catholic Armenian Churches afford evi- 
dence of such concessions in abundance. You 
may remember too that Bede tells us that 
when St. Augustine was sent to England Pope 
St. Gregory specially warned him in this lan- 
guage: '^ You know the custom of the Roman 
Church in which you were bred. It pleases 
me that if you have found anything, either in 
the Eoman or the Galilean or any other Church, 
which may be more acceptable to Almighty 
God, you carefully make choice of the same." 
And again, the same Pope said, ''Where the 
faith is one, differences of custom do not dam- 
age Holy Church." Such liberality, such pru- 
dence, such common sense have been habitual 
with the whole line of Roman Pontiffs. But 
concessions as to doctrines — no — ^never. 



English Protestantism. 150 

The President, Then you would maintain 
that the doctrines of those early kings, of whose 
devotion to the Holy See you have given ex- 
amples, were identical with the doctrines of the 
Eoman Church of this day, not only negatively 
but affirmatively? 

Th^ Irishman. Yes, necessarily. Unity un- 
der Divine authority is unity in Divine doc- 
trine. The two are as cause and effect. And 
just as the Church of England, as well as all 
Non-Conformism, not possessing the faintest 
shred of Divine authority, are the sport and 
plaything of every breeze of human opinion — 
quite as much so as are politics or social science 
— so the Catholic Church, possessing the Di- 
vine promises, has never varied, could not vary, 
from the Day of Pentecost to this hour, on any 
doctrine which is of faith unto salvation. 

The Ritualist Delegate. As to the question 
of '^ never varjdng" I will not harass you, 
because I know beforehand what your answer 
would be. You would say that new defini- 
tions, made in answer to new heresies, are not 
new doctrines but didactic affirmations. Let 
that pass. I admit that there is a good deal 



160 The Comedy of 

to be said for it. But now I should like you 
to quote to us any authority whom we could 
all accept — and when I say ''we" I mean the 
delegates — as to this point of the accepted au- 
thority of the Eoman See. I do not question 
your right to put your own interpretation upon 
this fact or upon that writing in ancient story ; 
I claim the same right for myself and I con- 
cede it to you; yet 1 may challenge you to 
quote from any reliable historian in whom 
Anglicans and Non-Conformists have confi- 
dence, the vindication of the fact that all 
Christendom in the earliest times believed in 
the supreme authority of the Pope. 

The Irishman (after hesitating for a few 
moments). ''An authority whom all would 
accept!" There is none! I was thinking 
whether I might quote to you St. Irenseus 
(in the second century), who wrote, "All the 
Churches must depend on the Church of Rome 
as on their source and head;" and again, 
"With this Church [of Eome], on account of 
her more powerful headship, it is necessary 
that every Church, that is, the faithful every- 
where dispersed, should agree." But perhaps 



English Protestantism, 161 

you would not accept St. Irena3us. Then I 
thought of quoting St. Cyprian, a Bishop in 
the third century, who wrote, ''The See of 
Eome is the root and womb of the Catholic 
Church;" and again, to Pope Cornelius he 
wrote, ''All heresies and schisms have sprung 
from a disregard for the one Priest and Judge 
to whom Christ has delegated his power. " But 
perhaps you would not highly esteem St. 
Cyprian. Then I thought of quoting St. 
Athanasius, a Bishop in the fourth century, 
who wrote to Pope Felix II., "You are the de- 
stroyer of the heresies which devastate the 
Church ; you are the Teacher and Guardian of 
sound doctrine and unerring faith." But pos- 
sibly you might have your prejudices against 
St. Athanasius. Then I thought of quoting 
Venerable Bede, who said: "All those who sep- 
arate themselves from the unity of his faith 
and communion — that is, of St. Peter, and of 
his successor, the Pope — can never be absolved 
from the bond of their sins nor enter the gate 
in the Heavenly Kingdom." But perhaps you 
would not care for Venerable Bede. Then I 

thought of quoting the great Council of Sar- 
11 



162 The Comedy of 

dica, A.D. 347, which wrote to Pope Julius I. : 
'^It is most fitting that the Bishops of the Lord 
make reference from all the Provinces to the 
Head, that is, the See of the Apostle Peter;" or 
again, one century later, the Council of Chalce- 
don, A.D. 451, which deposed the Archbishop 
of Alexandria because he had ''dared to hold 
a Council without the authority of the Apos- 
tolic See." But it is possible you might not 
think much of these councils. No : I will take 
a quite modern authority, one whom most 
Protestants will accept, and whom few will re- 
ject as of no credence. All the world has heard 
of the late Dr. Dollinger. He founded the sect 
of the New Protestants, fantastically styled the 
Old Catholics. Now Dr. Dollinger was not in- 
vited to be historian to the Vatican Council, 
but his writings were doubtless known to Pope 
Pius IX., and to the majority of the bishops 
in the Council When Dr. Dollinger started 
his little sect, he was eagerly hugged by Eng- 
lish Protestants, who have a traditional habit 
of fondly welcoming apostates, for the simple 
reason that they hate Catholic unity. (Cries 
of ''Oh, oh!") But Dr. Dollinger had com- 



English Protestantism. 163 

mitted himself to historic statements, to state- 
ments in regard to Chm^ch history, which have 
been happily preserved for our edification. If 
you will permit me, I will read to you tw^o 
short passages : the one, in regard to the Divine 
Origin of the Papah Supremacy ; the other in 
regard to the historic fact of that Supremacy 
having been universally accepted in the early 
centuries. 

In regard to the Divine Origin of the Papacy 
(and here the Irishman read from his note- 
book) Dr. DoUinger writes: ^'Ohrist gave to 
Peter four closely allied promises of future 
power and pre-eminence in the Church: (1) 
He should be the rock whereon Christ should 
build; (2) The Church built on him should 
never fail ; (3) Christ would give him the keys 
of his Kingdom or Church ; (4) What he bound 
or loosed on earth should be bound or loosed in 
Heaven." 

So much in regard to the Divine Origin of 
the Primacy. But now as to the fact of its 
recognition by the whole of the Christian 
Church in the early centuries. I think that 
the following sentences wall suffice : 



164 The Comedy of 

''The Second General Council, " writes Dr. 
Dollinger, "held in 3S1, which was a Council 
of only Oriental Bishops, acquired the authority 
of an (Ecumenical Council by the subsequent ac- 
ceptance and confirmation of the Pope; St. Au- 
gustine declaring after the two African Synods 
had been confirmed by the Pontiff, 'Roma locuta 
est, causa finita est. ' So again the Council of 
Ephesus, in forming its judgment against Nes- 
torius, said that it did so following the Canons 
and the Epistle of the Pope. The same Council 
also ratified, without any further examination, 
the Papal condemnation of Pelagianism. . . . 
At Chalcedon, the Council, in drawing up its 
dictum on the point of the controversy, did not 
appeal to the Synod which had been held at 
Constantinople under Flavian, but only to the 
decree of the Pontiff. ... In the judgment 
upon Eutyches, Cecropius, Bishop of Sebaste, 
declared in the name of all his brethren that 
the Bishop of Rome had sent to them a formu- 
lary, and that they all followed him and sub- 
scribed to his Epistle. The Sixth General 
Council in like manner declared that it ad- 
hered to the dogmatic Epistle of the Pope 



English Protestantism. 165 

Agatho, and by it condemned the heresy." 
There is an immense deal more of the same 
kind. In fact Dr. Bollinger fills several pages 
with his proofs that all Christendom was Ro- 
man Catholic, and this too in the very earliest 
ages. He insists that ^' Saint Peter was placed 
in the same relation as Christ had been before 
him to the collective body of believers, as the 
good shepherd who cares for the sheep." And 
I will just quote this one passage on the same 
point: ''Our Lord conferred on this Apostle 
the supreme authority in the Church. The 
more the Church was extended, and the more 
its constitution was formed, the more necessary 
did the power with which Peter had been in- 
vested become, the more evident was the need 
of a Head which should unite the members of 
the body — of a point and centre of unity. But 
as the existence of the Church was to know no 
other bounds than those of time, the dignity 
and power that were conferred upon Peter for 
the preservation of this unity could not die 
with him, but must have been transferred to 
others ; they were granted less to him for the 
Church of his time than to his successors and the 



166 The Comedy of 

Church of the following ages." And, finally — 
for I must yet add these few words — Dr. Dol- 
linger remarks as his own commentary on the 
fact that the whole of the early Church through- 
out the world was Eoman Catholic : '' It was ac- 
knowledged to be the prerogative of the first 
See in the Christian world that the Bishop of 
Kome could be judged by no man. It was a 
thing unheard of that the Head of the Church 
should be placed in judgment before his own 
subjects. He who was not in communion with 
the Bishop of Eome was not truly in the Cath- 
olic Church." 

I am afraid, sir, (and here the Irishman ad- 
dressed the Delegate for the Imported Sects, 
perhaps from unwillingness to worry the Eitu- 
alist Delegate) that you must give up Dr. 
Dollinger for your friend, in regard to your 
hypothesis that the faith of the early Church 
was so painfully and distressingly Protestant. 

The Delegate for the Imported Sects. May I 
ask from what volumes you have been quot- 
ing? 

The Irishman, The first extract, on the Di- 
vine Origin of the Papacy, is from Dr. DoUin- 



English Protestantism, 167 

ger's work on '^The First Age of Christianity 
and the Church," translated by Mr. Oxenham, 
and pubHshed by Messrs. Allen & Co., in 
1866; and the extracts on the historic fact of 
the recognition of the Primacy, with Dr. Bol- 
linger's own comment on that fact, are from 
his '^ History of the Church" — and chiefly from 
the section on ''The Pope as Supreme Father 
and Guardian of the Faith" — translated by Mr. 
Cox, and published by Mr. Dolman in 1840. 

The Delegate for the Imported Sects. Very 
disgraceful I I had no idea that Dr. Dollinger 
had fallen into such lamentable mistakes. 

The Irishman. There are other authorities 
who have fallen into lamentable mistakes in 
regard to this primary question of Divine Au- 
thority. I wonder if I might quote to you the 
language of King Henry VIII. , the first founder 
of the English Protestant religion, before the 
time when the charms of Anne Boleyn had be- 
witched his soul, his intelligence, his honesty. 
I conclude — though I may be wrong — that you 
all look upon Henry A^III. as a chosen vessel 
for the Reformation of Christendom; (The 
Ritualist Delegate : '' Jdo not") since if he were 



168 The Comedy of 

not so, he was the most conspicuous apostle of 
falsehood to which this Christian country has 
given heed. Now Henry VIII. , as you have 
heard — though Protestant historians have not 
given that prominence to the fact which in- 
genuousness or a decent candor would have 
suggested — wrote a book called '' Assertio Sep- 
tem Sacramentorum," in answer to the ribald 
profanity of Martin Luther, in which book 
he fairly demolished that heresiarch. I shall 
not be wasting your time if I read to you a few 
sentences from this certainly not too widely 
circulated publication, written, be it remem- 
bered, before the time when the unhappy king 
was taken captive by a weakness he should 
have shunned. I will confine my extracts to 
that portion of the *^' Assertio" which treats of 
the Pontifical Primacy or Supremacy. Ad- 
dressing himself to Martin Luther (and here 
the Irishman proceeded to read from his note- 
book) Henry VIII. wrote: '^I will not offer 
stich an insult to the Pontiff as to discuss anx- 
iously and carefully his right, as if it were a 
matter of doubt. It is sufficient for my pres- 
ent purpose that his enemy is so much carried 



English Protestantism. 169 

away by fury as to destroy Bis own credit, and 
clearly show that through malice he is neither 
consistent with himself nor knows what he 
says. For he cannot deny that every Church 
of the faithful acknowledges and venerates the 
Eoman See as its Mother and Primate, unless 
indeed distance of place and intervening dan- 
gers hinder access thereunto : although if those 
who come hither from the Indies speak the 
truth, even the Indians, separated from us by 
so many lands and seas and deserts, are sub- 
ject to the Eoman Pontiff. Therefore if the 
Pope has obtained this wide and greatly ex- 
tended power neither by the command of God 
nor the will of man, but has seized it by force, 
I would fain know of Luther v/hen he rushed 
into the possession of so great a territory? 
The origin of such immense power cannot be 
obscure, especially if it began in the memory 
of man. But should he say that it is not older 
than one or two centuries, let him point out 
the fact from histories ; otherwise, if it be so 
ancient that the origin of so great a power is 
obliterated, let him know that it is allowed by 
the laws that he whose rights ascend so far 



170 The Comedy of 

beyond the memory of man that their origin 
cannot be traced, had a lawful beginning ; and 
that it is forbidden by the consent of all nations 
to move those things which have been for a 
long time unmoved." And presently the King 
adds: ''When Luther so impudently asserts, 
and this against his former declaration, that 
the Pope has no kind of power over the Catho- 
lic Church, no, not so much as human, but 
that he has by sheer force usurped the sover- 
eignty, I greatly wonder how he should expect 
his readers to be either so credulous or dull as 
either to believe that a priest without any 
weapon or company to defend him, as doubt- 
less he was before he became possessed of that 
which Luther says he has usurped, could ever 
have hoped to gain, without any right or title, 
such empire over so many bishops, his equals, 
in so many different and distant nations; or 
that all people should believe that all cities, 
kingdoms, provinces, had been so reckless of 
their own affairs, rights, and liberties, as to 
give to a strange priest an amount of power 
over them, such as he could have hardly dared 
to hope for. But what matters it what Luther 



English Protestantism, 171 

thinks about this matter, who through anger 
and malice is ignorant of his own opinion, 
whilst he clearly shows that his knowledge is 
darkness, and that his foolish heart is blinded 
and given up to a reprobate sense to do and 
say those things which are not fitting? How 
true is that saying of the apostle: 'Though I 
have prophecies and understand all mysteries 
and all knowledge, and though I have all faith 
so as to remove mountains, and have no charity, 
I am nothing;' of which charity Luther shows 
how devoid he is, not only by himself perishing 
through fury, but much more by endeavoring 
to draw all others with him into destruction^, 
whilst he strives to dissuade them from obey- 
ing the Chief Bishop, to whom he himself is 
bound by a triple bond, as a Christian, as a 
priest, and lastly as a friar, hereafter to be 
punished by God in a triple way." 

The Delegate for the Imported Sects, I do 
not believe that Henry VIII. wrote that book. 
It was written for him by More, or Fisher, or 
Wolsey, or by some one of the Papistical fanat- 
ics of the period. 

The Irishman. That Henry did himself write 



172 The Comedy of 

that book I take to be a matter of certainty, 
and for reasons which I will now briefly give. 
First, he was competent to write it. Erasmus, 
in a letter to Duke George of Saxony, speaks 
of the King's fondness for theology, and of his 
habit of theological disputation. He says: 
'^ The prince has a happy and versatile genius, 
which succeeds wonderfully in whatever it un- 
dertakes. When he was a boy, he cultivated 
diligently his style." And he adds, ''I have 
never doubted that the book, which you 
rightly praise, is the work of him whose 
name it bears." In a letter also to Arch- 
bishop Warham, Erasmus says: ''I am per- 
suaded that the book has been written by the 
King himself." Moreover, Fisher, More, and 
Wolsey repudiated the authorship; Fisher say- 
ing emphatically, ''The King is now called 
Defender of the Faith siiis meritis^^'^ while in a 
sermon preached in 1521 he said : " The King's 
Grace hath with his own pen substantially 
foughten against Martin Luther." As to the 
King's own public assertion of his authorship, 
his language is so clear as to be conclusive. In 
his ''Eegis Angliae Eesponsio ad M. Luther, 



English Protestantism. 173 

Ep.," 1562, he says: '^Now however much you 
may pretend to believe that the book pubhshed 
by me is not mine, but forged in my name by 
cunning sophists, yet many far more worthy 
of credence than your trustworthy witnesses' 
know it to be mine, and I myself acknowl- 
edge it." 

Yet the question is not so much, ^^ Did Henry 
w^rite the book?" as ''Did the book convey the 
King's belief, the belief of the English nation, 
and of all Catholics?" The answer is, that 
Henry sent copies of the book to all Catholic 
princes who were friendly with him ; and thus 
obviously took for granted these three facts: 
(1) That all Catholic princes of his time were 
of one mind with himself as to the Pope's 
Paternity; (2) That throughout all England, 
both the clergy and the laity would take the 
expression of such orthodoxy as a matter of 
course; and (3) That Luther's novelties were 
regarded as so fantastically idiotic that they 
merited rather contempt than disputation. 

At this point a messenger came on to the 
platform and handed a scrap of paper to the 



174 The Comedy of 

President. After reading it the President an- 
nounced to the audience : 

I have received a few words from a Colonial 
Bishop, which I think it is my duty to read to 
you. His Lordship says : 

"I have been present at this debate for sev- 
eral hours, and I have heard nothing that was 
not evasive or disloyal. I shall now leave the 
hall. It was the duty of the Anglican Dele- 
gates to have proved to the audience the Con- 
tinuity of the Church of England from the 
ancient Church. As they have not attempted 
to do so, I will not be present any longer at 
what I regard as a solemn travesty of clerical 
duty." 

A good deal of profane laughter followed the 
reading of this letter, mixed with cheers of ap- 
proval from many Anglicans. The President 
seemed undecided how to act. He evidently 
felt that a critical moment had arrived, and 
that the Council was in danger of being brought 
to naught. Nothing had thus far been done 
toward Eeunion, and it was certain that 
nothing would be done. In his dilemma the 
President appeared to be considering what 



English Protestantism, 175 

course he should adopt for his own credit ; and 
after a minute or two he appealed to the audi- 
ence, preferring to leave the decision with them. 
The President. Before we go to tea — and I 
think that a moment has arrived when we may 
all reasonably indulge in that festivity (cheer- 
ing) — ^it may be well that we see how far we 
have got, and decide what we shall do in the 
evening. Let me first put before you our posi- 
tion; so that, having retraced the course of 
our deliberations, we may see what we have 
lost, what we have gained. The Low Church 
Delegate led off this morning with an earnest 
appeal to all Dissenters that they would come 
inside the really expansive National Church. 
The Broad Church Delegate, immediately fol- 
lowing, was equally earnest in his exhortation 
that all Dissenters should stay outside that 
Institution. And the argument of the Low 
Churchman was that the Church, being com- 
prehensive, charitably included all the shades 
of Non-Conformism ; while the argument of the 
Broad Churchman was that, if the Church were 
so comprehensive, it could not exclude the very 
people whom it included. We next listened to 



176 The Comedy of 

an able speech by the Eitualist Delegate, of 
which the burden was, ''' Wait for a dozen 
years, until the Church of England be perfected 
in Catholicity." This counsel, doubtless admi- 
rable in some aspects, did not satisfy the gifted 
Delegate for the Wesleyans, who proceeded to 
roughly handle the Ritualist's arguments, and 
indeed to severely lecture him on inconsistency. 
In the afternoon, the Salvationist Delegate 
asked us all to join General Booth's army; but 
the invitation was not accepted with unanim- 
ity. The next speaker was the Delegate for 
the Home-Made Sects, who repudiated all An- 
glican schools save the Evangelical; and by 
his caustic satire on the '^ Three Big Churches 
in the Establishment" put all hope of recon- 
ciliation out of the question. The Delegate 
for the Imported Sects — I am sure sincere in 
his convictions — rather indulged in ardent 
Protestantism than in amenity ; and so opened 
a way for a new advocacy — quite unlocked for 
though not unwelcome to the audience — that 
of the obviously sincere Irish Catholic. I 
think therefore I may go so far as to say posi- 
tively : There is no hope of the Reunion of the 



English Protestantism. 177 

Churches; and it rests with the audience to 
decide at once whether the Council shall be 
continued, or shall be broken up as fruitless 
and unworthy. And yet it seems to me there 
is one way of escape. In the letter which I 
have read to you from the Colonial Bishop, there 
is a warm insistence on the duty of the Church 
Delegates to '^ prove the Continuity of the 
Church of England from the primitive Catholic 
Church in this country. " Well, it seems to me — 
and I say it with regret — that, as there is now 
no hope of the Eeunion of the Churches, I 
may ask you : Is it your pleasure that this 
subject of Continuity shall be discussed in this 
hall after tea? It is true that the subject has 
been treated indirectly by more than one speaker 
in this Council, yet it is obvious that there is a 
good deal more to be said about it. '^ Conti- 
nuity" is certainly now the great watchword of 
the Church of England — at least of the High 
Church or Ritualist party — and I own that if 
the theory be sound, and the realization also 
can be brought within practical view, there 
would be a substantial ground on which to 
argue that the Reunion of the Churches might 
13 



178 The Comedy of English Protestantism, 

be still made desirable for all good men. I 
can only speak for myself; for I do not know 
whether the delegates and the audience take 
my own view of the imjjortance of this ques- 
tion. Let me put it to the vote. Will those 
who are in favor of discussing '^Continuity," 
so soon as we meet again, in about half an 
hour, be so good as to hold up a hand? 

(A show of hands decided the question in the 
affirmative, and the audience dispersed to take 
their tea.) 



THE EVENING. 

It was natural that the evening audience 
should be small. The President having af- 
firmed^ at the close of his address, that there 
was ''no hope of a Eeunion of the Churches," 
the major part of the audience looked on the 
subject as ended, and on the Council as a mis- 
erable fiasco. Only the few who took an in- 
terest in ''Continuity" cared to return for an 
academic discussion, which might possibly have 
charms for the Clergy and the Eitualists, but 
which was of too narrow a compass to engage 
the many. The President had evidently an- 
ticipated a small gathering, for he had invited 
private friends to the platform ; so that there 
was rather the expectation of a friendly talk 
than fear of further failure from discussion. 
The Editor of these pages was accompanied by 
the few friends whom he had met at the pleas- 
ant luncheon in the morning ; Mr. Armytage 

in particular being interested in the question, 

179 



180 The Comedy of 

''What can the delegates possibly make out of 
Continuity?" Indeed Mr. Armytage so con- 
stantlj^ interrupted the Editor, while he was 
endeavoring to make accurate shorthand notes, 
that it was difficult to fulfil that duty satisfac- 
torily. 

The President looking around him, was per- 
haps gratified to assure himself that the Irish 
gentleman had not returned to the hall. The 
seven delegates were, however, all in their 
places. 

About a dozen invited clergymen imparted 
dignity to the platform, while the hall was 
certainly not more than half full. 

''Will yoii^ sir," inquired the President of 
Canon Courtly, "kindly open the discussion 
upon Continuity?" 

"I do not believe in the necessity of it," an- 
swered that gentleman ; a confession which 
was received with much amusement. 

"Will you^ sir," asked the President of Dr. 
Wylde. 

"I frankly confess," said Dr. Wylde, "that 
Continuity in different doctrinal beliefs, or 



English Protestantism. 181 

Continuity in different ideas upon authority, 
appears to me to be a contradiction in terms." 

The President then looked inquiringly at the 
Dissenting Delegates, but they only smiled, 
and seemed to say, '^This is not our province." 

The Eev. Sebastian Stole then became an 
object of personal interest^ and at once re- 
sponded to the invitation of the President by a 
few words which were lucid and appropriate. 

Rev. Sebastian Stole. In my own sense of 
Continuity, it means, first, the possession of true 
Orders; next, the profession of the primitive 
faith; and thirdly, the unbroken heritage of 
all the wealth of the Christian Covenant, com- 
ing down to us from the time of the apostles. 
That the Church of England has Continuity I 
am persuaded from the three facts that she 
has true Orders, true Sacraments, and true 
Faith; and while no one deplores more than I 
do the hideous heritage of the Eeformation, 
with its anti-Christian sweeping away of Catho- 
lic altars, and its substitution of a purely Com- 
memorative Celebration, I do not permit my- 
self to confuse the horrors of a revolution with 
the crime of apostasy or even heresy. The 



182 The Comedy of 

Reformation was an historical accident, not af- 
fecting the soul of the Enghsh Church, but 
only mutilating its body in many members. 
It left the Church Catholic because Continu- 
ous. The scandals of the Reformation were 
not schismatical ; they were almost every one 
of them political. They assaulted the faith, 
but did not kill it ; they even attacked Conti- 
nuity, but did not break it. It has been the 
probation of the Catholic Church in all ages to 
have to pass through terrible trials of faith. In 
our own time we have had many such trials ; 
yet I look forward to a period when, abuses 
being removed, and the primitive tone being 
thoroughly restored to the Church of England, 
all Englishmen will coijfess that the Church of 
England alone is the true heir of Continuity 
from the Early Church. 

(This was felt to be a very modest beginning, 
and hardly fitted to stimulate discussion. The 
Broad Church Delegate, Dr. Wylde, who was 
sitting next to Mr. Stole, remarked quietly, 
after rising from his chair :) 

Rev. Dr. Wylde. I must own that, as a 
Broad Churchman, and having no sympathy 



English Protestantisin. 183 

with Eitualism — but rather lookmg upon Dis- 
senters as being quite as good Christians as are 
AngHcans whether High Church or Low — I 
am disposed to estimate this question of Con- 
tinuity as being abstract, inutile, and imprac- 
ticable. Indeed I regard it as de facto impossi- 
ble, and dejure unreal or equivocal. Continuity 
of what and from what? Now, first, what is 
the simple meaning of Continuity? It can 
only mean the continuance of the same Faith 
through channels which are accepted as of the 
same authority. If there has ever been inter- 
ruption in that continuance, the break would 
create a gulf which would be impassable. On 
the same principle that ''the strength of a 
chain is the strength of its weakest link," it 
may be argued that the loss of any one link — 
a fortiori the loss of a dozen links — in the 
chain of the High Church claim to Continuity, 
would mean practically that there was no chain 
at all. Now the Church of England, it seems 
to me, has positively 7io link with the British 
Church, on account of the changes, both in 
Authority and Doctrine, which have convulsed 
it since its rupture with the Holy See. All 



184 The Comedy of 

the links of its Continuity have been smashed 
to atoms. Or, — if I may use a rough simile, — 
I should say that its Continuity is of the same 
kind as is that of a broken watch-guard, which, 
having one link fastened to the waistcoat, and 
one link fastened to the watch in the waistcoat 
pocket, has no link between those extreme 
links, and therefore, to the ordinary intelli- 
gence, non est. Remember that I am not argu- 
ing with reference to belief in Christ — ^for that 
may be continuous in all ages ; I am arguing 
solely with the Ritualist claim of Continuity 
from and through the Roman Catholic Church. 

Now, to begin with, the Ritualists believe in 
the Apostolic Succession, and they claim to 
possess that succession from the earliest times, 
right through the middle ages and the Refor- 
mation. I maintain that this claim is histori- 
cally unsound, while morally it is destructive 
and suicidal. Have I your permission to give 
my reasons for this view? 

(Assent on the part of the President and of 
Mr. Stole.) 

Well, I was much struck, if I may say so, 
with what the Wesleyan Delegate said this 



English Protestantism. 185 

morning, in regard to the fictitious claim to 
Eoman Orders; and were it not that ''Conti- 
nuity" calls for it, I would not add anything to 
his remarks. As he observed forcibly, not only 
do the Eoman Church and the Czar's Church 
reject the Anglican Orders as of no value, but 
all the Reformers, and all High Churchmen 
since Laud's time, have regarded them as a 
very ''open" question indeed. How was it 
possible that they could do otherwise? The 
deposition of a whole bench of bishops by the 
civil authority was an event as unprecedented 
in English history as it was absolutely null 
and void in ancient law. The Ecclesia Docens 
must have remained with the deposed bishops 
— that is, if 3"ou accept the Catholic theory. 
Queen Elizabeth could no more create a Divine 
. Eight than she could create an Apostolical 
Succession. The whole spirituality of England 
protested against the act of the Queen's gov- 
ernment ; and as it was known that one-half 
of the deposed bishops had been appointed 
before the time of Queen Mary, no quibble 
could be hazarded, or v/as hazarded, in regard 
to their thoroughly Catholic institution. And 



186 The Comedy of 

into the place of the deposed bishops were put 
— who? Why, men who were, all but one, 
bitter Calvinists, and who loathed Episcopacy 
as they loathed the Sacrifice of the Mass. In- 
deed, so difficult was it to get bishops for the 
New Church, that, in 1559, a bill had to be 
passed through Parliament, giving the Queen 
power to '^collate or appoint bishops ivithoiit 
rites or ceremonies;" and seven years later 
another Act was passed, which decreed that 
such appointments were valid, in spiritual 
sense, ^'any matter or cause to the contrary 
notwithstanding;" the Queen, "by her supreme 
power and authority," dispensing from all dis- 
abilities and imperfections. As the historian, 
Mr. Froude, says, "The Queen desired to dress 
up her bishops as counterfeits of the Catholic 
hierarchy ; and half in reverence, half in con- 
tempt, compel them to assume the name and 
character of a priesthood, which both she and 
they knew in their hearts to be an illusion and 
a dream." 

Rev, Sebastian Stole, Yet you are aware 
that Pope Pius IV. sent his Nuncio to England 
in 1560, with an offer to agree to all the 



English Protestantism. 187 

changes in the EngHsh liturgy, and to recog- 
nize the vahd appointment of the bishops, if 
only his supremacy were acknowledged? 

Bev. Dr. Wylde. I should be disposed to 
discredit that statement. The whole story was 
first fathered upon Coke, who denied that he 
had invented such a fib. Fuller, whom I think 
we must accept as being unprejudiced, says he 
''found the tale to have originated with those 
who love to feign what they cannot find, that 
they may never appear to be at a loss." The 
truth is, the Pope's envoy was not allowed to 
land in England; and what his instructions 
were, if he had any, nobody knows. Now I 
think I need not weary you with a discussion 
of the vexed question: Were Barlow, Scory, 
Coverdale, and Hodgkins — four unfrocked, 
degraded, and excommunicated friars — capable 
of consecrating the first Protestant archbishop 
— "consecrating" in the Catholic sense? The 
Act of 1565 answered that question. In the 
very fact that the Act said that ''by the au- 
thority of this present Parliament" such ap- 
pointment and consecration are rendered valid, 
"any matter or thing that can be objected to 



188 The Comedy of 

the contrary thereof in any wise notwithstand- 
ing, "we trace the consciousness of Parhament, 
and also of the Queen, that these consecrations 
were not Catholic consecrations. Hence the 
new bishops vrere nicknamed ''Parhamentary 
bishops;" for all the world knew the fiction of 
their ordination, just as all the world knew the 
fiction of their jurisdiction. And in 1662 the 
Calvinistic rite of Cranmer, by which these 
ultra-Protestant Orders had been conferred, 
was put aside by Anglicans on the very ground 
that it was insufficient; in other words, they 
said: ''The new Succession is no Succession." 
It cannot be too often insisted upon, that all 
the English bishops holding office under Queen 
Mary refused to hand on the Succession to 
Elizabeth's clergy; and that without their co- 
operation no " canonical" succession was pos- 
sible by the laws of the ancient Church. Of 
the four quasi-episcopal starters of the new 
Church, Scory, Coverdale, and Hodgkins were 
not provincial bishops, nor had they been con- 
secrated by the Ritual of the English Church, 
but only by Cranmer's Protestant rite ; and as 
to Barlow, let it suffice that he did not believe 



English Protestantism, 189 

in Ordination, but thought that ^'only the ap- 
pointing was sufficient;" and that ''laymen 
had otherwhiles made priests" when Christian 
Ponces were in want of true bishops. While, 
as to the great body of the Reformers, they 
spoke of Orders with such contempt — using 
language which would be repugnant to mod- 
ern ears, from its coarseness both of sentiment 
and of epithet — that it would be nadness to 
suppose that they believed in what they 
scorned, or that they possessed what they re- 
pudiated with such disgust. 

If any one therefore can rest his faith in 
the '' CatlioUcity^^ of the Church of England 
— in the sense used by our modern ultra High 
Churchmen — on the ground of the certainty of 
its Roman Succession, it seems to me that .he 
exhibits a credulity in a spiritual matter which 
he would regard as simply insane in any tem- 
poral matter; and that his conception of a 
''Catholic" priesthood is, after all, not more 
lofty than that of the conception of an ordained 
ministry by Non-Conformists. Indeed of the 
two I much prefer the Dissenting view. Dis- 
senters at least do not believe in the Apostolical 



190 The Comedij of 

Succession; they believe only in personal fit- 
ness for the ministry; whereas the High 
Church party affect to believe in a doubtful 
fact, which never has been proved and never 
can be; and which, if it were proved, would 
only brand their ancestors as apostates, and 
themselves as in Continuity from apostasy. 
(Cheers from the Dissenting party.) 

Canon Courtly. It appears to me that Con- 
tinuity, in the Eitualist sense of the word, 
must be tested by consistency, by common 
sense. I do not go so far as the Broad Church 
Delegate, who advises all Dissenters to ''stop 
outside the Church of England;" because I 
think that ecclesiastical harmony would be 
edifying, as well as helpful to the conversion 
of the heathen. Still, I must say that if the 
Catholic Continuity is to be made so much of 
in the existing Church of England, it ought 
to be primarily indicated by the sameness Qi 
Anglican Belief with the Belief of Catholic 
ages, Catholic clergy. But has there ever been 
this sameness? No, there never has been and 
there is not now. So that to make such 
a great point of Continuity of Catholic priest- 



English Protestantism, Vdl 

hood, while utterly ignoring Continuity of 
Catholic Belief, appears to me irrational^ 
absurd. 

(The Wesleyan Delegate now rose, and 
quickly interested all the persons in the hall, 
equally the Churchmen and the Dissenters.) 

Rev, Walter Sterling, Were you not struck, 
gentlemen, by the opening words of the last 
speaker: '^Continuity in the sense now ap- 
proved by High Churchmen must be tested by 
consistency, by common sense"? Now, I am 
going to test Continuity in this way ; yet not 
by a purely modern array of testimony, but by 
taking you back to the time of Queen Elizabeth. 
My question is — and I shall put it to every 
one of you — ''Can common sense justify the 
view that Anglicanism was in Continuity from 
Eoman Catholicism?" If it were not so, there 
is an end of Continuity; for, as the Broad 
Church Delegate remarked, a chain of which 
even one link is wanting is not a chain but 
severed links; a fortiori if for forty years 
there was the complete rupture of all kinds of 
Continuity, it would be simply idle, it would 
be frivolous, to insist on the pretension that 



19'2 The Comedy of 

Anglicanism is in Continuity from Mediaeval- 
ism. 

Now suffer me to draw for you a sketch 
of the reign of Queen Elizabeth by way of 
illustrating what I mean by ''broken links." 
I will not quote one Roman authority. An- 
glicans alone shall tell the tale. In the 
autumn of last year there appeared in the 
Guardian newspaper — may I say, the most 
reliable of your Church newspapers? — some 
articles by Mr. Pocock, an acknowledged high 
authority on the Anglicanism of the Tudors 
and the Stuarts. I read those articles yester- 
day, and my memory is quite fresh as to the 
more salient of the assertions and admissions. 
I will, however, refer to my note-book, if nec- 
essary. I was first struck by the fact that the 
English sees were kept vacant — Bristol and Ely 
were kept vacant for thirty years, and Oxford 
for almost the whole of the Queen's reign — so 
that her Majesty might enjoy the episcopal 
revenues ; every bishop entering his bishopric 
under simoniacal contracts, made either with 
the Queen or her favorites. The Zwinglians 
and the Calvinists, who, in the reign of Queen 



English Protestantism, 193 

Mary, had taken refuge in the various towns 
of Switzerland, were the men from whom Eliz- 
abeth chose her bishops; ^'and probably," says 
Mr. Pocock, ^'not a single bishop was to be 
found who believed in his own Divine commis- 
sion, or in the efficacy of the sacraments." 

But as with the new bishops, so with the 
new clergy. Mr. Pocock frankly ridicules the 
popular delusion that many priests conformed 
to the Queen's religion. The poorer clergy 
were compelled to abstain from open protest 
so as to avoid the terrible punishment which 
would have followed; but the fact that vast 
numbers of English parishes had no clergy — in 
the Ely diocese only 52 parishes out of 152 
being served by any kind of Protestant clergy- 
men ; in the Norwich diocese only half ; in the 
Lincoln diocese only half; and in two Welsh 
dioceses none at all — shows how true was Bish- 
op Jewel's admission to Peter Martyr, ''Now 
that religion is everywhere changed, the Mass 
priests absent themselves altogether from pub- 
lic worship, as if it were the greatest impiety 
to have anything in common with the people 

of God." Indeed only 806 out of (an asserted) 
13 



194 The Comedy of 

9400 of the clergy were '^returned" as being 
willing to take the oath. Onl)' one-tenth of 
them presented themselves before the (first) 
Commissioners ; most of the rest being deprived 
of their cures. Mechanics had to be employed 
to read the service in empty churches, with 
''cobblers, weavers, tinkers, tanners, and fid- 
dlers," and Presbyterian and Lutheran min- 
isters had to be invited to do the work of 
the ''inheritors of the Apostolic Succession." 
Every vestige of the old religion was swept 
away. So that the Church of England, once 
Catholic, became in the reign of Queen Eliza- 
beth almost everything in the world except 
Catholic; and, as Hallam says in his "Consti- 
tutional History," " Some Catholics frequented 
our churches because the law compelled them 
to do so, not out of a notion that very little 
change had been made by the Eeforma- 
tion." 

As to the English masses, we can almost 
imagine what must follow. Outward con- 
formity to the new order was perhaps the rule. 
When every one was fined for not attending 
the Queen's worship (save the few favored ones 



English Protestantism. 195 

who were allowed dispensations), it was natu- 
ral that only the minority would be martyrs, 
the multitude conforming while abhorring. 
Yet it is perfectly marvellous, considering the 
weakness of human nature, and considering 
also the poverty of the masses, what a large 
number preferred to stay outside the churches 
to participating in the Act of Parliament 
service. Moreover, the new clergy being an 
utterly ignorant class of men, ''rude and un- 
learned ministers," as Burleigh called them, 
being also Calvinists or else Zwinglians, were 
utterly contemned by the common people, 
while as to their new worship — called ''May 
game" or "Christmas game*' — it was ridiculed 
by the people in every ale-house, and if possi- 
ble still more ridiculed in the churches ; Bishop 
Pilkington of Durham speaking of the "walk- 
ing, talking, chidings, fightings, that had been 
going on in the church — and that especially in 
time of Divine service ;" and adding " A Popish 
summoner, spy, or promoter, will drive more 
to a church with a word, to hear a Latin Mass, 
than seven preachers will bring in a week's 
preaching to hear a godly sermon . . . nor 



196 The Comedij of 

can Christian rulers, hy the ivhip of disci- 
pline^ drive others forward." The Ecclesias- 
tical Commissioners made a report, in which, 
among other scandals of clergy and laity, they 
speak of 'Hhe people swarming in the streets 
and ale-houses during service time ; so that in 
many churches there is only the curate and 
the clerk, and open markets are kept during 
service time. Cock-fights and unlawful games 
are tolerated on Sunday during Divine service, 
and justices of the peace and ecclesiastical 
commissioners are present." And this state 
of things, be it remembered, lasted right down 
to the time of Archbishop Laud, in whose days, 
as the state papers tell us, 'Hhe congregation 
sat, the men wearing their hats or not, as it 
suited their convenience ; the communion table 
standing in the body of the church, being 
made the receptacle for such hats and clothes 
as were not worn, and frequently used as a 
seat by any one who was not accommodated 
with a pew." And in the same spirit the state 
papers of the reign of Elizabeth record for us 
that Scory, Bishop of Hereford, wrote to Cecil, 
^' My cathedral is a very nursery of blasphemy, 



English Protestantism, 197 

impurity, pride, superstition and ignorance;" 
Bishop Best of Carlisle reporting his clergy to 
be ''wicked imps of hell;" while the Vicar- 
General of Lincoln, in his visitation of the dio- 
cese, September 19th, 1634, said: ''Many Pre- 
bendaries have never seen the church ; ale- 
houses, hounds, and swine are kept in the 
church-yard very offensively; at Louth the 
clergy and laity are much given to drunken- 
ness, the goodly church of Boston is much 
decayed, whilst at Huntingdon the vicar of 
Odell never uses his surplice, or makes the sign 
of the cross at baptism, and at Alesbury the 
clergy perform clandestine marriages with 
gloves and masks on." The church v/ardens 
of Knotting in Bedfordshire were charged be- 
fore the official commissioners of the archdea- 
con with "having allowed for the last three 
years cock-fighting to go in the chancel of the 
church; the minister of the church with his 
sons being present and enjoying the sport." 
So that we can hardly wonder that the whole 
kingdom was so demoralized that the Bishop 
of Norwich, in 1635, could report to the gov- 
ernment: "In all the churches of the city of 



198 The Comedy of 

Norwich there is not one in which there is any 
morning service or sermon." 

Now the question to be asked, after this slight 
sketch of a whole reign — ay, and right down 
to the time of Archbishop Laud — is, Whence 
do you get your Continuity of worship, any 
more than your Continuity of Orders? If I 
were an Anglican, it seems to me that I 
should fervently pray that the Apostolical Suc- 
cession might be a myth. (''Oh, oh!" and 
laughter.) Why, how was it possible, as I 
remarked to you this morning, that the heirs 
of the same Apostolical Succession could ap- 
prove and practise opposite Christian worships? 
The whole reign of Queen Elizabeth was, to 
use a common parlance, rabidly and deliriously 
anti-Catholic, so far as the New Anglican 
Bishops, priests, and laity were concerned. If^ 
therefore, you can maintain that you derive 
your Catholic Continuity — of priesthood, of 
worship, of dogma — through forty years of 
destructively Protestant Elizabethanism, you 
can maintain that you derive strength and 
health from forty years' submergence under 
the seas; or that between this earth and- the 



English Protestantism. 199 

moon the connection is so intimate, that the 
inhabitants of both are all as twins. (Amuse- 
ment.) 

Rev. Sebastian Stole. The sole cause of the 
whole imbroglio was persecution. I do not 
see how Continuity can be affected by Queen 
Elizabeth's persecution of Roman priests, or 
by her legal indorsement of a Protestant ser- 
vice. We must remember that, as Macaulay 
says, the whole Reformation was ''a political 
job;" the spiritual powers of the clergy re- 
maining intact amid the triumph of evil for 
the time being.^ 

(The Wesleyan Delegate waited for a mo- 
ment, to see if any one else would respond, 
and then said brusquely, as was his wont :) 

Bev. Walter Sterling. Persecution! You 
say that persecution did not stop Continuity. 
Now I will just take this subject of persecution 
— if the delegates will grant me a few more 
moments — and will argue that the persecution 
itself was the strongest possible disproof of 
Continuity. I must treat of the story of per- 
secution as a whole^ so as to trace its argu- 
mentative force. 



200 The Comedy of 

Queen Elizabeth was the greatest persecutor 
that ever lived. 

Mr, Moore, What! Greater than Queen 
Mary? 

The Wesleyan, Yes, greater, because she 
persecuted right through forty years, without 
an interval of even twenty -four hours. Yet 
we hear a good deal of the Marian persecu- 
tions, but we hear nothing of the persecutions 
under Elizabeth. Now though the point is, 
for the moment, a digression, yet as you have 
mentioned Mary's reign I will speak of it. It 
is not always remembered that, in the reign of 
Queen Mary, the very men who were guilty of 
being persecutors had been persecuted them- 
selves in the previous reign ; and it was more- 
over in Edward's reign, as you all know, that 
Cranmer — who in Henry VIII. 's reign had 
burnt Anne Askew for denying the doctrine of 
the Keal Presence— burnt Joan Bocher for some 
peculiar views as to the Incarnation, and soon 
afterward burnt a Dutch Unitarian, and also a 
number of Anabaptists. This wretc^h, Cran- 
mer — the Eobespierre of the Eeformation — 
compiled a criminal code, in which all specifi- 



English Protestantism. 201 

cally Roman doctrines should expose their pro- 
fessors to death, and this too by the horrible 
process of burning. So that when he was at 
length executed in Mary's reign, all the world 
felt he had only got his due. Now, for my 
part, I abhor persecution, whether it be by 
Catholics or by Protestants. (''Hear, hear!") 
Yet I will venture to make this one remark — 
though the remark is not my own, for it was 
made to me a few days ago by a Roman Cath- 
olic: When Catholic governments have perse- 
cuted they have at least had this apology, that 
the Catholic Church professed itself to be infal- 
lible; whereas when Protestant governments 
have persecuted, they have had no apology at 
all, for they have always professed that their 
Protestantism was fallible. Now that a relig- 
ion which says, ''I can teach you, "should per- 
secute may be cruel, but it is not illogical ; but 
that a religion which says, "I cannot teach 
you," should persecute is not only illogical but 
contemptible. 

Now how came Queen Elizabeth to persecute? 
The answer is the death-blow to Continuity. 
She persecuted because her only chance of 



202 The Comedy of 

being Queen was to cut herself off from Con- 
tinuity, and to start a 7iew Church which in 
Orders, Faith, Fellowship, should have nothing 
in, common with the old Church. As Dean 
Milman says, in his Annals of St. Paul's 
Cathedral, ''Elizabeth's bishops, especially all 
the more prominent, Parker the primate and 
the Bishop of London, were in truth the real 
founders of the Church of England. Eliza- 
beth's bishops were steadfastly determined 
against the old religion, and were resolutely 
fixed and fully in unison in their new creeds." 
And as the only way in which it was possible 
to establish a state religion was by the most 
odious and sustained persecution, the Queen 
proceeded to murder those who possessed Cath- 
olic Continuity, or to banish them from her 
terror-stricken kingdom. Catholic Continuity 
fled to the seminaries beyond the seas ; Eome, 
Valladolid, Seville, Madrid, Lisbon, with nu- 
merous Catholic refuges all over Europe, be- 
came its extemporized homes; Jesuits, Bene- 
dictines, Carmelites, Franciscans, Carthusians, 
Cistercians, with hosts of exiled Seculars, and 
also Nuns, took with them Catholic Continuity 



English Protestantism, 203 

to Catholic countries ; and then, year by year, 
sent their missionaries to England, to die for 
the faith of the Eoman Church. St. Philip 
Neri, as I read the other day, would take his 
stand at the gate of a Eoman college to watch 
the English seminarists starting for England, 
and would salute them with " Salvete floi^es 
martyriim,^^ well knowing that they were on 
the direct road to Tyburn. Meanwhile, in 
England, what an agony I The trae heirs of 
Continuity, seeking refuge in holes and corners, 
were subjected to every imaginable persecu- 
tion; ^'inquisitors of heretical pravity, " or, as 
they were commonly called, " searchers, " were 
sent into towns and villages to hunt up Catho- 
lics; and when they trapped them, what then? 
Poor Margaret Clitheroe, ''for harboring a 
priest," was crushed to death by the peine forte 
et dure; one hundred and forty-two priests 
were hanged, of whom one hundred and 
twenty-six died for exercising priestly func- 
tions, while eighty more died of torture in 
prisons. Queen Elizabeth was the worthy 
daughter of Henry VIII. Just as that de- 
bauched and murderous tyrant hung Carthu- 



204 The Comedy of 

sian monks at their monastery gates, because 
they would not acknowledge his royal suprem- 
acy, and slew Fisher, More, Garnet, and scores 
of monks because they would not bend the 
knee to his Pontificate; so did Elizabeth kill 
the bodies or crush the souls of all her subjects 
who openly professed their Continuity with the 
Catholic Church, or who were accused and 
found guilty of that crime. The 'Spriest- 
catchers" were authorized to break into private 
houses to search for the faithful heirs of Con- 
tinuity; while Queen Elizabeth's archbishop 
presided over the Court of High Commission to 
's conduct inquiries by rack, torture, and inqui- 
sition." Indeed, as Hallam says in his history, 
"The rack seldom stood idle in the Tower for 
all the latter part of Elizabeth's reign.'' Con- 
fiscations and outlawry, the seizure of Catholic 
children, everything that' human malice could 
conceive, were tried for the extermination of 
Continuity; the true spirit of the ''Reforma- 
tion" — an outbreak, as Macaulay has put it, 
which was "begun by Henry the murderer of 
his wives, continued by Somerset the murderer 
of his brother, and completed by Elizabeth the 



English Protestantism, 205 

murderer of her guest" — was given the freest, 
the wildest play for forty years, in the fond hope 
of obliterating the Roman Church ; so that, as 
Montalembert has expressed it, ^'The Church 
of England was one of the most awful forms 
of sin and pride that have ever appeared in the 
world ;" and again he wrote, '' The authors of 
that Church could find their models amongst 
the monsters who reigned at Eome while the 
Church was in the catacombs." 

And permit me to say one word about Ireland. 
To show how ubiquitous was this persecution, 
let it be mentioned that in the seventeenth 
century an oath was administered to all Irish- 
men, including the denial of the Doctrine of 
Transubstantiation, of the Sacrifice of the 
Mass, of Purgatory, of the Authority of the 
Pope — in short, of the whole Eoman faith. 
Englishmen compelled Irishmen to abjure the 
Roman religion, in homage to the suave toler- 
antism of the Church of England ! Ah, I will 
not allude — it is better not — to the horrors of 
Cromwell's time; to the slave markets of Ja- 
maica and the West Indies, with the splendid 
business of Bristol slave -dealers in Irish flesh — 



206 The Comedy of 

eight thousand Irish were sold in five years; 
to the exile of a hundred thousand Catholics 
for their religion during two years of these un- 
equalled atrocities ; to the massacre of priests, 
women, and children in the distant settlements 
to which the Government consigned them : no, 
such things ought to shame the hearts of all 
Christians. Well might Dr. Johnson say, 
^' Even in the Ten Persecutions there is no in- 
stance of such severity as the Protestants in 
Ireland have exercised over the Catholics;" 
and well might the great statesman Burke say, 
''Our penal code against the Catholics was sav- 
age as anything that ever proceeded from the 
perverted ingenuity of man. " We, Dissenters, 
can deeply sympathize with Eoman Catholics ; 
for we too have had our full share of persecu- 
tion, and have been ostracized by generations 
of English Churchmen, because we would not 
accept their Eoyal religion. ("Hear, hear!" 
from the Dissenting party.) 

Now do you agree with me, or do you not, 
that it was impossible that the Anglican clergy 
should be true heirs of the Roman Catholic 
Continuity; seeing that the Anglican clergy 



English Protestantism. 207 

cruelly tortured the Catholic clergy, while re- 
viling almost every article of their faith ? This 
is what I call a moral argument; and I much 
prefer moral arguments to sophistical ones, be- 
cause they appeal to the common sense of all 
mankind. You may speculate as you like about 
Barlow's consecration, about the sufficiency of 
Cranmer's rite of ordination, or about Eoman 
Catholics becoming schismatics by their expa- 
triation; but I take my stand upon common 
sense; and I affirm that an Anglican clergy 
which, throughout the reign of Queen Eliza- 
beth, assisted at the execution of Catholic 
priests; which for three centuries has hated 
Catholic priests, and for three centuries has 
hated Catholic doctrines — cannot have a Con- 
tinuity of Catholicit3^ You Eitualist gentle- 
men forget that it was only the day before 
yesterday when you began your Anglican nov- 
elties about ''Anglo -Catholicism;" but all the 
world remembers it though you do not. For 
three hundred years your ancestry were Prot- 
estant — bitterly, cruelly Protestant and per- 
secuting. Dissenters have good reason to know 
that ! And now that you talk of your Conti- 



208 The Comedy of 

nuity from the Catholic Church — the real Cath- 
olic Church meanwhile disowning you! — we 
Dissenters cannot help smiling and asking our- 
selves : ^' How can this disowned and disowning 
son claim the Catholic Church for a Mother, 
without first asking pardon of that Mother?" 
We Dissenters have nothing to do with the 
Church of England, and nothing to do with 
the Church of Eome. You, the Eitualists, are 
either the disowned children of the Church of 
Eome, or else you have no parentage what- 
ever. Either way you have no Continuity. 

(At this point a conversation took place be- 
tween the President and a gentleman who was 
sitting next to him, and whose name, as it 
afterward transpired, was Professor Mildmay 
— a professor in one of the best English col- 
leges. The subject of the conversation re- 
mained a secret; but presently the President 
addressed the delegates, and sought to open 
out a new line of argument.) 

The President, If I mistake not, gentlemen, 
the question of Continuity may be argued on 
far-reaching historic grounds. Hitherto the 



English Protestantism, 209 

discussion has been narrowed to the Eeforma- 
tion; but I know that the vast majority of 
High Churchmen pass over the Eeformation 
in their argument, and claim to trace Conti- 
nuity from such very early times as the cen- 
turies antecedent to St. Augustine. Now I 
think it would be interesting if we went back 
to the beginning — say, to the time of St. 
Augustine's mission in the sixth century. May 
I ask the Ritualist Delegate whether he clings 
to the theory that before the time of the mis- 
sion of St. Augustine the British Church was 
independent of Eome ; so that when St. Augus- 
tine landed in Britain he found the Britons un- 
willing to receive him — indeed hostile to the 
claims of the Roman Pontiff? 

Rev, Sebastian Stole. I should be disposed 
to say bluntly: The Britons in 596 could not 
have been Roman Catholic, or they would have 
obeyed the Pope's emissary in all things, and 
certainly as to the time of keeping Easter. 
The fact that, on the contrary, they refused to 
obey the Pope's emissary proves that they 
were not Roman Catholic. 

(No one answering, the President spoke 
14 



210 The Comedy of 

privately to Professor Mildmay, and that gen- 
tleman seemed to accept an invitation. The 
professor rose slowly from his chair. He was 
so bland and so polite that it was not easy to 
anticipate on which side of a contest he would 
range himself. He was one of those men who 
seem at first to agree with you — until you 
find to your astonishment in the course of a 
few moments that they differ from you on 
every possible point. With more than his usual 
suavity he bowed to Mr. Stole, and said :) 

Professor Mildmay. I should quite concur 
with the Rev. Mr. Stole in his prima facie es- 
timate of the Augustine mission. It seems so 
obvious that the early Britons were not Eoman 
Catholic, if we may judge only from this one 
speaking incident of their rejection of a mis- 
sionary sent from Eome. {" Hear, hear !" from 
Mr. Stole.) I was deeply impressed with this 
view from my earlier study of history, espe- 
cially from a work I read called ^'Thoophilus 
Anglicanus," which was written by a distin- 
guished Anglican bishop. That work was 
composed to show that the modern Church 
of England was the same Church with the 



English Protestantism, 211 

Primitive British Church — in fact, to prove 
what is now called Continuity. Subsequently 
I examined critically into the subject; for 
I wanted to know ivhy the Britons refused 
to change their Easter in obedience to the 
pleading of the Pope's emissary. I discovered 
some strangely enlightening facts, though not 
quite in the direction I had looked. for. I dis- 
covered that the British Easter in 596 had been 
the original Eoman Catholic Easter. This 
seemed to me curious. Then I found that the 
Emperor Constantine, a.d. 326, — as Eusebius 
tells us in his /'De Vita Constantini, " — certi- 
fied that ''the same Easter was observed in the 
City of Kome, and through all Italy, Africa, 
Egypt, Spain, Gaul, Britain^ and all Achaia." 
Searching next into the ''Annales Cambriae" 
I found the entry: ''This year, a.d. 453, 
Easter is changed on Sunday, with Pope Leo, 
Bishop of Eome." I also found that the Coun- 
cil of Nice boldly asserted that the British and 
Eoman Easter were identical. So that it be- 
came evident to me that the early Britons were 
in communion with the Holy See two or three 
centuries before the time of St. Augustine. I 



212 The Comedy of 

therefore sought for the sokition of the episode 
we are referring to in some other possibly en- 
lightening channels. I found that solution, 
and it was as follows: The Britons and the 
Saxons were bitter enemies. St. Augustine 
came to the Britons through the Saxons, and 
was therefore regarded as an enemy. Vener- 
able Bede explains the whole matter in this 
one sentence: ''To other acts of unspeakable 
wickedness the Britons added this, that they 
would never commit the word of faith by 
preaching to the race of Saxons or Angles that 
dwelt with them in Britain." And, as we all 
know, so crushing was this enmity that the 
Saxons drove the Britons clean out of the 
country into AVales and into Brittany in France. 
I think, therefore, we have a clear solution of 
the episode. The early Britons had been from 
the first Eoman Catholic. Their quarrels with 
the Saxons made them inimical to St. Augus- 
tine, who came to them from the Saxon King 
Ethelbert, and urged them to try to convert 
their hated rivals. I do not trace Anglican 
Continuity in the episode. I trace only the 
normal wickedness of a savage war. 



English Proiesianiism. 213 

(Mr. Stole not responding, the President 
said :) 

The President. Could you quote to us any 
parallel circumstances in the time you are 
referring to, which would indicate that the 
Pope's Supremacy was accepted? ''Continu- 
ity" seems to largely depend on your answer. 

Professor Mildmay, Briefly: I will make 
only two remarks : the first is that the Roman 
Liturgy, brought by St. Augustine to this 
country, was used henceforth in this country 
for nine centuries; and is, indeed, practically 
the same Liturgy which is now used by Roman 
Catholics in the archdiocese of Westminster 
and all over England. This would seem to 
imply that Continuity in Roman Doctrine can 
be traced back from very early times indeed. 
My second remark is that, at the period of the 
Augustine mission, the Pontifical sway of St. 
Gregory the Great was almost world-wide. 
Indeed this sway was so asserted and so 
admitted that St. Gregory could mark out 
dioceses, prescribe synods, receive appeals, re- 
vise judgments, depose bishops, judge of faith, 
and require of all men that they should refer 



214 The Comedy of 

difficult questions to him. And this too at the 
close of the sixth century. I apprehend, there- 
fore, that Continuity may rather be traced from 
St. Gregory the Great than from those few 
half-savage Britons who, driven wild by fero- 
cious enmity, showed a not very amiable tem- 
per toward St. Augustine. 

The Rev, Sebastian Stole (who was disap- 
pointed with Professor Mildmay). It seems to 
me that you would ignore the historic fact that, 
all down the middle ages, the governments of 
this country were in constant warfare with the 
ambitious bishops of Rome — with their Pontifi- 
cal pretensions and exactions. Continuity 
must stand or fall by that fact. 

Professor Mildmay. I should be grieved if 
you could suppose for a moment that I ignored 
any fact or any argument. It would be im- 
possible to question the accuracy of your asser- 
tion that such conflicts were frequent, almost 
continuous. Yet may I respectfully suggest 
that these conflicts, without exception, referred 
only to the frontier -line of Two Powers, the 
Powers of the Spirituality and the Temporal- 
ity? Such words as Appeals, Prohibitions, 



English Protestantism. 215 

Provisors, Preemunire, point to conflicts be- 
tween Sovereigns and Popes, not as to the 
Pope's power in spiritual matters, but as to 
the ''mixed causes, " which were half -spiritual, 
half -temporal. In a recent pamphlet which 
was published by Lord Selborne, there is an 
effort to prove that these contests in the middle 
ages showed the rejection of the Pontifical 
power by English sovereigns. Toward the 
end of that pamphlet Lord Selborne confesses 
that he has been arguing from an Anglican 
point of view; or, as he expresses it, ''All that 
has been said represents of course an English, 
not the Eoman point of view.'* And again he 
says, "It is necessarily from the English point 
of view that this controversy must be con- 
ducted." Now it is perfectly natural that an 
eminent judge should look at history as both 
prosecutor and defendant in vexed questions; 
yet I cannot help thinking of Mr. Froude's 
saying, " It seems to me that history is like a 
child's box of letters, with which we can spell 
any word we please." In the present case the 
"box of letters" is a thousand years of the 
correlation of the Spiritual and the Eegal 



216 The Comedy of 

Powers in this country; and strange indeed 
would it have been if, in that long period, 
there had not been kings who were more 
worldly than they were Christian. The Church 
Militant necessarily implies the World Militant. 
May I be permitted, however, to express this 
view of the vexed question : that English kings, 
in always submitting to the Papal authority, 
spite of their sometimes resisting it for a long 
period, proved that the faith of the English 
nation was Roman Catholic ; that " Continuity" 
was always regarded as Pontifical? Take two 
of the most well-known illustrations: the con- 
test of St. Thomas a Becket with Henry 11., 
and that of Stephen Langdon with King John. 
In both cases the Pope was on the side of the 
archbishop, and the archbishop acted solely on 
the Pope's authority. Now how did these two 
contests end? In the first case, Henry 11. had 
to stand in Canterbury Cathedral, with his 
hand on the Book of the Gospels on the high 
altar, and to swear to abolish all customs con- 
trary to the liberty of the Church, and to do 
penance for his share in the archbishop's mur- 
der. In the second case, King John had to 



English Protestantism. 217 

stand in the open air, outside the west door of 
the same cathedral, and to swear to abohsh all 
the ''new customs," and to restore the ecclesi- 
astical laws of St. Edward. Now ivliy did these 
two tyrants consent to do this? How came it 
to pass that two imperious monarchs, full of 
pride and purely worldly ambition, had to 
humble themselves before their subjects and 
to do public penance, as though they were 
ordinary profligates or malefactors? I can 
only think of one answer, and it is this: it was 
because all England was so intensely Eoman 
Catholic that no king dared to incur the Pope's 
anathema; in other words, it was because the 
national sense of Continuity was in harmony 
with that of the bishops and the Supreme Pon- 
tiff ; "Roma lociita est, causa finita est,'' being 
the sum of the Continuity of Enghsh CathoHcs. 
The President. Do I understand you to con- 
vey that every one of the English kings as- 
sented to the spiritual claims of the Eoman 
Pontiffs; that there was only, from time to 
time, a perfectly natural friction in regard to 
the frontiers of the Two Powers— a friction 
which from the nature of things v/as unavoid- 



218 The Comedy of 

able ; and which is even manifest in the pres- 
ent day, under altered conditions, wherever 
the State and the Church dispute their bound- 
aries? 

Professor Mildmay. I should say so. From 
the time of William the Conqueror — wilful 
prince that he was — who wrote to Pope Greg- 
ory VII. that he '^ would pay the Peter's Pence 
because all his predecessors had done so;" to 
the time, say, of Edward II., who wrote to the 
Sacred College that ''by an unchangeable ordi- 
nance Christ gave the charge of His Church to 
the Apostle St. Peter, and in his person to his 
successors, the Eoman Pontiffs;" and so on, 
right down to Henry VIII. ; there seems to 
have been one harmonious acknowledgment of 
the Spiritual Supremacy of the Popes. 

Pastor Dort. There is one point on which I 
cannot suffer the learned professor to run away 
with these Eoman Catholic ideas. For myself 
I should boldly affirm that, had it not been for 
the ''Forged Decretals," all this power of the 
Roman Pontiffs would not have been heard of. 
The Anglican claimants to Continuity may 



English Protestantism, 219 

well point to them as being the instrument of 
the new change in the old faith. I agree with 
Lord Selborne that the Forged Decretals were 
the main source of the Continuity of rank 
Popery all over Christendom. I take the side 
of that learned Lord Chancellor, in considering 
that, had it not been for the Forged Decretals, 
Popery might have been comparatively harm- 
less. 

Professor Mildmay. I always thought that 
view so perfectly natural. Prima facie I 
should justify your inference. If I do not 
quite do so, it is upon grounds which you will, 
I hope, acknowledge to be substantial — to be 
at least sufficiently statistical to have weight. 
And first may I say to you : As the Forged 
Decretals had no existence for two hundred and 
fifty years after the time of St. Gregory the 
Great, I do not see how your reasoning can 
apply. The date of the Decretals was 845- 
857. The date of St. Augustine's mission 
was 596. And it is admitted by the majority 
of historians that, as they express it, "the 
power of the Popes had been built up " before 
the conversion of England by St. Augustine. 



220 The Comedy of 

How, then, could those Decretals affect that 
power? 

Pastor Dort, In the very fact that the as- 
sertion of such colossal power was forged we 
can trace the purpose of the forger to promote 
that power. 

The Professor, That is so true. Yet you 
are, I am sure, aware that a great part of 
these Decretals were not forgeries, but quota- 
tions from real documents? They were very 
largely transcripts of authenticated writings, 
referred, however, to periods they did not be- 
long to. Sometimes the periods would be 
made earlier, sometimes they would be made 
later, than the periods in which they actually 
appeared. The purpose of the forgery seems 
to have been to protect the French bishops 
from local interference or dictation, and their 
origin was unquestionably French. But there 
are two points to which I would draw your at- 
tention, and which I think must have weight 
in the controversy. The first point is that 
there is not a single prerogative of the Eoman 
Pontiff insisted upon throughout the whole of 
the Forged Decretals which was not recognized 



English Protestantism. 221 

as the common law of the Christian Church. 
This being so, it is not curious that none of the 
Popes used the Forged Decretals to "build up" 
their power or supremacy. The very Popes 
who are assumed to have been so ambitious 
during the period following the discovery of 
the Decretals declined to recognize their genu- 
ineness or authenticity. Pope St. Nicholas did 
not make any use of them, nor did Adrian II., 
nor did John VIII., nor did Stephen— save in 
one passage, in which he shows by the context 
that he did not attach any value to them. And 
when it is added— and this is my second point 
—that no surprise was felt throughout Chris- 
tendom (so far as Christendom could be said to 
hear of the matter) at anything that was con- 
tained •in these Decretals— for the simple rea- 
son that there was nothing new in their ruling 
—it is not too much to say that these Decretals 
are a grand witness to the faith of the early 
Christians throughout Europe— to the belief 
that "Continuity" was inexorably Pontifical, 
essentially bound up with the Papal Power. 

I will draw a parallel by way of illustrating 
my meaning. If in this year, 1893, a won- 



222 The Comedy of 

drous manuscript were to be brought to light, 
in which very great authorities were made to 
affirm that the English government had been 
monarchical since the time of the battle of 
Hastings, the manuscript would not attract 
much attention. It was precisely the same 
with the Forged Decretals. They did not con- 
tain anything that was not known as to 
doctrine, or government, or discipline. They 
were, therefore, always treated as a curiosity, 
or at the best as an unauthorized collection ; 
no one for a long while being able to name the 
compiler, and no Pope ever giving them his 
guarantee. 

Pastor Dort (who seemed to be half-amused 
and half -irritated). I take it that the gist of 
your general pleading might be vei^r fairly 
summarized in this way : that it is the mak- 
ing of history, or the mis-reading of history, 
which is responsible for popular misapprehen- 
sion ? 

Professor Mildmay. It is not the fault of the 
readers but of the writers. With the excep- 
tion of Hallam, I do not know any English 
historian who can be said to have written his- 



English Protestantism. 223 

tory without a text. Indeed the text is the 
only apology for the history. Take that won- 
drously eloquent chapter by Lord Macaulay on 
the life and character of his hero, William of 
Orange. The text is, ''Blessed was the Protes- 
tant Ascendancy;" and the sermon is, "See 
how this hero of the Ascendancy was without 
flaw in his conduct or his morals." Mr. 
Froude's idea of history as being ''a child's 
box of letters" is justified by most essayists 
and controversialists ; and the reason is that 
history is loved more for its aid in special 
pleading than for its testimony to what we do 
not wish to be true. 

(Professor Mildmay resuming his seat, there 
was a lull, indeed a silence, for a few mo- 
ments. The President, however, wisely broke 
the silence by a suggestion which was appro- 
priate and interesting.) 

The President, I am surprised that, while 
discussing ''Continuity," no one has said a 
word about "Catholicity." I had thought 
that the two subjects must go together. In- 
deed I have heard it argued by High Church- 
men that Continuity and Catholicity are not 



224 The Comedy of 

divisible; Continuity being the pledge of Cath- 
olicity, and* Catholicity the pledge of Conti- 
nuity. Now if Catholicity be twin with 
Continuity, it would be desirable that we 
should apprehend their mutual aid. May I 
ask you, gentlemen, to define for me the 
word ^^ Catholic," so that we may arrive at 
some accord on this subject? I should like 
you, each one of you, to answer the question 
in turn, ''What do you mean by the word 
Catholic?" 

Canon Courtly, A Catholic, to my thinking, 
is a baptized soul, who believes in the fellow- 
ship of all good Christians. 

Dr. Wylde. Catholic, in the modern sense, 
means comprehensive of all differences. 

Rev, Walter Sterling, In real sense, I take 
Catholic to mean the union of all Christians in 
one common belief in the one Eedeemer; in 
historic sense it means "Eoman" Catholic; 
and in Anglican sense it means the union of 
Episcopalians, to the exclusion of Wesleyans 
and all wretched heretics. (Laughter.) 

Mr. Moore. Catholics are those Christians 
who are agreed upon essentials; though un- 



English Protestantism, 225 

happily there is great variety of opinion as to 
the compass of what is essential to the Chris- 
tian faith. 

Captain Banner. Catholics are those Chris- 
tians who have the assurance of their being 
saved. 

Pastor Dort, I have always insisted that the 
word Catholic has two meanings: The union 
of all true Christians in scriptural truth, and 
their union in the rejection of Papal claims. 

Rev. Sebastian Stole. The word Catholic 
means simply universal. Are we to under- 
stand the universality of error, or the univer- 
sality of one baptism into one faith? 

The President. The "one faith" is the very 
question at issue! If we could be all "Catho- 
lic in one faith" our Catholicity would indeed 
be magnificent. 

Professor Mildmay. To be all Catholic in one 
faith would be impossible, unless there were 
an authority to decide on faith. 

Pastor Dort. You are speaking now of an 
imposed faith, not of a faith which should be 
spontaneous and free. I have a very poor 
opinion of an imposed faith. 

15 



226 The Comedy of 

Professor Mildmay. Is faith, then, permit 
me to ask you, to be grounded on private judg- 
ment, or is it to be grounded on authority? 
Private judgment may be ''free," but it is not 
trustworthy. In divine truths we want an 
authority which is divine. 

The President, When you say ^' an authority 
which is divine, " you mean, I suppose, ahving, 
audible authority, a hving, audible interpreter 
of Revelation? 

Professor Mildmay. Yes. Without it the 
Catholicity of one faith would be an absolute 
impossibility in the human family. 

Mr. Moore. Then, if I mistake not, you 
would advocate the principle of a living, audi- 
ble Head of the Christian Church? I do not 
believe that the Christian Body called the 
Church has any need of a living, audible Head. 
To my thinking Catholicity is interior; not 
ostensible, corporate, ecclesiastical. We all 
believe in a spiritual body called the Church, 
whose Catholicity is not visible but interior. 

Professor Mildmay. The word "spiritual," 
as it seems to me, may be made to hide prac- 
tical disunion. In England alone there are 



English Protestantism. 227 

236 sects, each of which claims to define 
truths ''spiritually." Yet to be spiritual a 
truth must be divine; to be divine it must 
be one unchangeable truth. To talk of 
"spiritual unity," when there is variety in 
doctrine, is as inaccurate as to talk of material 
unity when the component parts are at war by 
their very nature. 

Rev. Walte?^ Sterling (after a pause, and 
with some vehemence). Then what is the 
alone Christian unity? 

(Some moments passed, but no one answered ; 
when suddenly Mr. Armytage, to the great 
surprise of the Editor of these pages, rose 
quickly from his place beside the Editor ; and 
before the Editor had time to pull him back 
into his seat, had begun to take part in the 
debate.) 

Mr. Armytage. May I be permitted to at- 
tempt to answer the question just proposed: 
"What is the alone Christian unity?" 

The President, and the other gentlemen on 
the platform, appeared for the moment to be 
perplexed; but they very politely conceded to 
Mr. Armytage the privilege of offering his 



228 The Comedy of 

opinion. He therefore answered Mr. Sterling 
as follows: 

The ''alone Christian unity" for which the 
reverend gentleman seeks is the union of all 
the members of one body with the one head 
of that body ; a union of the same faith, the 
same sacraments, the same worship; and 
therefore the union of the Church on earth 
with the Church in heaven — the realization of 
the Catholic Communion of Saints. Here then 
we have also the true idea of ''Catholicity," of 
which the delegates have just suggested vari- 
ous meanings. Catholicity is not the union of 
differences, but the union of most absolute 
identities. From the Supreme Pontiff to the 
child at his First Communion, there is one 
mind on every point that is of faith. This is 
why it has been said that " Catholicity is eccle- 
siastical beauty; and beauty is balance and 
proportion." But what beauty, what balance 
or proportion, can be found in the hideous 
progeny of heresy? Your Church of England 
has utterly repudiated Catholicity; and so in- 
sensible is she to the duty of desiring it that 
she can make her sovereigns swear, on their 



English Protestantism., 2^9 

coronation day, to maintain — not the beauty 
of Catholicity, not its balance or proportion, 
but — 'Hhe Protestant Eeformed Religion es- 
tablished by law." Yes, laiv is your insular 
notion of Catholicity. As^Lord Chief Justice 
Coleridge has well put it: ''The Established 
Church is a political institution, established, 
created, and protected by law, absolutely de- 
pendant on Parliament:" an excellent sum- 
mary of the famous statutes of Henry VIII., 
Edward VI., and Elizabeth, which established 
''the Supremacy of the Crown over spiritual 
men and causes." And, gentlemen, now that 
I am speaking to you on Authority, I will 
recall to you a correlative point. Jurisdiction. 
Permit me to say to you that, as is your Spirit- 
ual Authority, so also is your Spiritual Juris- 
diction. Acts of Parliament are the sole foun- 
tain of your Jurisdiction, as they are the sole 
fountain of your whole spiritual Government. 
I could not help wondering, when you were 
discussing Catholicity, why not one of you 
said a word about jurisdiction. Yet jurisdic- 
tion is an integral part of Catholicity, for both 
have their pledge in Supreme Authority. Suffer 



230 The Comedy of 

me to say a word on this subject ; it is so con- 
clusive as to your loant of Catholicity. What 
jurisdiction have your Anglican bishops and 
archbishops? They have just so much juris- 
diction as a Prime Minister can give them — 
that is, they have no jurisdiction at all. They 
have the same jurisdiction as a Postmaster Gen- 
eral — derived from exactly the same source. 
May I be pardoned if I illustrate this grave 
travesty of jurisdiction from an incident in the 
life of Lord Beaconsfield? He was walking in 
London with a Member of Parliament, when an 
Anglican bishop saluted him profoundly — with 
an obeisance which could only be interpreted 
as meaning, '^I recognize that you are my 
superior." Lord Beaconsfield turned laugh- 
ingly to his friend and said, '^I made him a 
bishop, but I forget his name." Yes, Lord 
Beaconsfield had given him all the Catholic 
jurisdiction which the author of brilliant novels 
could impart to him out of the plenitude of 
his romantic apostolicity. But this is your 
misfortune, reverend gentlemen, that you must 
ally divine authority with State offices, be- 
cause you have denied divine authority to the 



English Protestantism. 231 

Holy See. This inversion is a necessity of your 
Protestantism. It has been the necessity of 
AngHcan Protestantism in all periods. I am 
reminded of a saying of Francis I., King of 
France, in the time of the arch -rebel, Henry 
Vni. '' The King of England, " said the French 
King, 'Ogives dispensations like His Holiness; 
and I believe he will soon want to say Mass." 
Why not? you may well ask; why should not 
Henry VIII. have said Mass? If the Temporal 
Power can create spiritual jurisdiction, why 
should it not exercise priestly functions? O 
quod ludibrium de Ecclesia facts. What a 
conception Anglicans have' of a Divine Church ! 
What a conception Anglicans have of Al- 
mighty God ! As the late Lord Tennyson said 
with perfectly pardonable sarcasm : "The great 
majority of Englishmen look upon Almighty 
God as an immeasurable clergyman in a white 
tie." 

(Mr. Armytage was on the point of resum- 
ing his seat, when the Delegate for the Home- 
Made Sects said to him :) 

Mr, Moore, You, sir, believe in a visible 
Church, with its visible integrity or unity, and 



232 The Comedy of 

with its visible Head, the Supreme Pontiff. 
Dissenters believe only in the invisible body of 
redeemed souls, and in the invisible Divine 
Head who is in Heaven. 

Mr, Armytage. Your clergy are visible, your 
congresses are visible, quite as visible as are the 
clergy and congresses of the Church of England. 
If, then, you admit the principle of visible 
authority, why not carry out that principle in 
its entirety, and believe also in a Visible Head? 

(No answer being given, Mr. Armytage pro- 
ceeded :) Who ever heard of a body without 
a head to it? Decapitation is usually regarded 
as capital punishment; yet all non-Catholics 
have made it the supreme method of imparting 
life to that '^ Second Incarnation," the Church 
of God. Is not this the very superlative of 
irrationalism ? Does it not contradict all we 
see and know ? Did you ever hear of a tree 
without a root? Did you ever hear of a circle 
without a centre? Did you ever hear of a 
stream without a source, of a disciple without 
a master, of a family which had never ac- 
knowledged any father? Did you ever hear of 
an army which had no Commander-in-Chief, 



English Protestantism, 233 

or of a navy of which the ship's crews had the 
supreme power? And if in human matters, 
where perhaps many men are wise men, there 
is the confessed impossibility of fruitful union 
unless one man take the lead and be obeyed, 
how much more in spiritual matters, which 
are beyond all human judgment, must a right 
faith depend on a right authority? Has not 
God shown you, by the myriad divisions of 
Protestant heresies, that man, as his own 
teacher, must get wrong? Look at England, 
which for three centuries has been schismat- 
ical. See the awful state of internecine quar- 
relling all over the kingdom ; clergy and laity, 
men, women, and children being like autumn 
leaves blown about by a high wind; more 
than two hundred religious sects turning their 
weapons against each other; Christian men, 
ay, and Christian women, declaiming in draw- 
ing-rooms, on public platforms, in wayside 
taverns, against sacraments, against authority, 
against obedience ; perverting history, pervert- 
ing fact, perverting doctrine in their resolute 
determination to obey themselves ; seeking for 
pretexts for their life-long evasion of holy 



234 The Comedy of 

faith ; and going down to their graves with no 
more knowledge of Catholic philosophy than 
captious books or mercenary newspapers can 
give them. Gentlemen, you have to-day been 
seeking for unity. You have been proposing 
to unite the Church of England with the in- 
finitely varying sects of Non-Conformism. 
But what said Cardinal Newman fifty years 
ago, when he was struggling to find his way 
into Catholic unity: ''We cannot hope for 
the recovery of Dissenting bodies while we 
ourselves are alienated from the great body of 
Christendom. We cannot hope for unity of 
faith, if we at our own private will make a 
faith for ourselves in this one small corner of 
the earth." And how applicable are these 
words to the present hour — to thisr Council 
which has met to-day to seek for unity ! For 
unity and Catholicity are the same thing; and 
so are Catholicity and Continuity. I pray you, 
gentlemen, to unite yourselves with the Su- 
preme Head of Christendom, that so you may 
have Unity, Catholicity, Continuity. 

(And having delivered himself of this fervid 
oration, Mr. Armytage resumed his place be- 



English Protestantism. 235 

side the Editor; and the gentlemen on the 
platform seemed diverted and also pleased that 
a stranger had broken in upon their dignity. 
The President merely remarked very amiably.) 

The President, We must have all enjoyed 
the enthusiasm of the last speaker. He at 
least made it plain that, in the Eoman Catho- 
lic sense. Catholicity depends on union with 
the Holy See. I should have liked him, how- 
ever, before he sat down, to have attempted 
an answer to the main question: ''Is it not 
possible to regard Catholic Continuity as a 
heritage of the Anglo- Catholic Church?" 

Mr, Armytage (who rose eagerly in response) . 
No, sir, it is on all grounds impossible. On 
the ground of Holy Orders, on the ground of 
jurisdiction, on the ground of faith, worship, 
devotion, it is impracticable to the point of 
absurdity. The modern High Churchmen, en- 
throning themselves on their insularism, look 
the Catholic Church in the face and say : " Yon 
are in error. We alone are the supreme arbi- 
ters of Catholic truth.* We alone are the true 
heirs of the Primitive Church. Our infallibil- 
ity extends to the judgment of our own Church, 



236 The Comedy of 

of the Middle Ages, and, of course, specially 
and radically, of the Holy See ; and we^ in the 
plenitude of our apostolic wisdom, pronounce 
ourselves to be continuous — not from you^ not 
from the Middle Ages, not from the faith of 
the canonized saints of a dozen centuries, but 
from that infallibility which died out before 
Augustine, to be renewed only by Dr. Pusey 
and Dr. Littledale, and a few other chosen 
spirits of modern Anglicanism. 

No, I must ask to be excused from grave 
argument, for it is difficult to be grave about 
such sophistry. I cannot turn my intellect up- 
side down. I cannot trace Continuity from, 
exact opposites — Continuity of disobedience 
from obedience; of personal, individual infal- 
libility from the infallibility of the undivided 
Catholic Church; of the spiritual headship of 
Queen Victoria, of her parliaments and privy 
councils, from that of the Supreme Pontificate 
of St. Peter ; of a parliamentary form of divine 
service from the Sacrifice of the Mass ; of ir- 
reverence to the Blessed Virgin from devotion 
to her ; of two mutilated sacraments from the 
perfect Seven; of a married clergy from an 



English Protestantism, 237 

unmarried priesthood; of no confession from 
habitual confession ; of the lajang on of hands 
by a respectable married gentleman from a 
consecration which included the anointing the 
hands of the candidates by holy chrism, the 
delivering to them the chalice and the paten, 
and the celebration of the Sacrifice of the Mass 
conjointly with the bishop who ordained them; 
of a hundred different religious 'Wiews" or 
"theologies" from one and the same faith in 
all ages; of the Thirty -nine Articles from Gen- 
eral Councils; of the Canterbury of to-day 
from the Canterbury of St. Augustine or St. 
Thomas; of the modern Westminster Abbey 
from the Abbey of the Confessor; or of the 
comfortable domestic closes of the Cathedrals 
from the ascetic homes of Benedictines or 
Dominicans ; of one incessant roar of doctrinal 
strife and newspaper theologies from the still, 
small voice of the Holy Spirit of God, directing 
all intellects to know and believe the same 
truths, while leaving them free to question 
everything that was not of faith ; of — but I 
may, I think, sum it all up in one word, the 
Continuity of the human from the divine. 



238 The Comedy of English Protestantism. 

Common sense is the only theologian that is 
wanted. Not until chaos can be continuity 
of divine order, or exact contraries continuity 
of identities, can the Church of England es- 
tablish her claim to Catholic unity with the 
one holy, undivided Church of Christ. 

(And now there began a general movement in 
the hall, with an obvious sense that there was 
little more to be said. The President entered 
familiarly into conversation with the dele- 
gates, and with the other gentlemen who had 
been invited to the platform. Mr. Armytage, 
after his warm spasmodic effort, was only too 
happy to make his escape into fresh air ; but 
perhaps the Editor of these pages was the most 
rejoiced of all the company, because his labori- 
ous day's work was completed.) 



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BENZIGER BROTHERS' STANDARD CATHOLIC BOOKS. 15 

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16 BENZTGER BEOTHEBS' STAND ABD CATHOLIC BOOKS. 



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